Tesco has announced that it will donate the profits made from an increase in sales of ice to the Motor Neurone Disease Association, which has now received over £3m through donations from the ice bucket challenge.

The supermarket giant, which sold more than 36 million ice cubes over the last week alone, has so far pledged to donate £20,000 to the charity. The amount is expected to increase after further ice sales over the weekend.

Tesco also challenged its competitors to do the same, and it seems that Asda accepted the invitation, reportedly donating £22,000 to the MND Association.

Greg Sage, community director for Tesco, said: “We’ve seen a big increase in sales of bags of ice as a direct result of this phenomenon, and we want the Motor Neurone Disease Association to be the ones to benefit. That’s why we’ve pledged to donate the extra profits we make to them, and we nominate Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons to do the same!”

Asda went on to nominate Aldi and Lidl to give up their ice sale profits.

National ice manufacturer the Ice Co has also donated £10,000 to the charity.

Douglas Graham, director of fundraising for the MND Association, said: “Last year in total we received 161,000 donations and in the last week alone we have had more than half a million donations adding up to more than £3m and that’s still rising.

“The icing on the cake this week was the news that national ice manufacturer and supplier the Ice Co has donated £10k to the MND Association. We also received £20k from Tesco from sales so far, so that is set to raise even more as people keep doing the challenge and another donation from Asda for £22k, which is just brilliant.

“The impact on our ability to fund research and support people with this cruel disease will be massive.”

No donations

However, research conducted by discount website vouchercodespro.co.uk has revealed that plenty of people who have taken the challenge have not done so for charity.

Of the 1,528 adults who took part in the poll, 42 per cent of people had done the challenge but 56 per cent of these did not donate to charity and 39 per cent of them admitted to only doing so for attention on social media.

The majority of people who took part, 41 per cent, said they did so to raise money and awareness for a particular charity, however 53 per cent said they did not know what cause the ice bucket challenge was originally started for.

The ice bucket challenge has seen some controversy in the last week as Macmillan received criticism on social media for promoting the challenge to raise money for its own cause. It responded by dismissing claims that it had “hijacked” the challenge’s hashtag, stating that the craze had begun in New Zealand on behalf of cancer charities. On Wednesday Macmillan announced that it has raised £3m through the challenge.

Nick Swan, a spokesman for vouchercodespro.co.uk, said: “The ice bucket challenge follows the ‘No Make-Up Selfie’ nominations in showing the true power of social media. However, it could be possible that these trends on social media are distracting people from the real causes, with 39 per cent of people admitting to doing the challenge purely for attention online.”

Doing 'the Doubtfire'

A mental health charity is hoping to mirror the success of the ice bucket challenge by getting people to ‘Do the Doubtfire’, in memory of American comedian Robin Williams who committed suicide earlier this month. It forms part of the ‘I’m Listening’ campaign by charity Harmless.

Supporters are encouraged to photograph themselves dressed up as Mrs Doubtfire from the 1992 film starring Williams, in order to raise awareness of the importance of talking about mental health.