The Huddersfield man who pioneered the frozen food supermarket chain Iceland has a date in his home town this summer.

Malcolm Walker will receive an honorary doctorate at Huddersfield University to mark his “outstanding contribution to the world of commerce and entrepreneurship and for his philanthropic work”.

He will collect his award at the university’s July awards ceremonies.

Mr Walker, who was born in 1946 and grew up in Grange Moor, began his entrepreneurial career as a dance promoter while still at school, which he left to enter retailing as a trainee manager with Woolworths in Huddersfield.

He founded Iceland as a sideline in 1970, opening a single small shop in Oswestry with a starting capital of just £30.

Mr Walker was chairman and chief executive of Iceland throughout 30 years of continuous sales growth. In all but one of those years, the company also increased its profits.

Mr Walker left Iceland in 2001, but returned as chief executive in February, 2005. Over the next seven years, he transformed its performance and morale – with like-for-like sales rising by more than 50%.

Iceland today has sales exceeding £2.7bn. It has more than 850 stores – including ones at Trinity Street and Aspley in Huddersfield and at Railway Street in Dewsbury. It has 25,000 employees, who have twice voted it the Best Big Company to Work For in the UK – in 2012 and 2014.

Since leading a £1.5bn management buyout in 2012, Mr Walker has significantly accelerated Iceland’s store opening programme in the UK, developed a new Iceland retail business in the Czech Republic, acquired the formerly franchised Iceland stores in the Republic of Ireland and substantially expanded the Iceland brand in new export markets.

Iceland’s charitable foundation has raised more than £11m for good causes, including Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Help for Heroes, Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Royal British Legion.

Mr Walker’s own fundraising initiatives have included participation in the Iceland Everest Expedition of 2011, the Descent of the Shard abseil in 2012 and the Iceland Antarctic Expedition later that year.

His many other business interests ranging from food manufacturing to restaurants and property and his autobiography, Best Served Cold, was published in 2013.