Norwegian grocery stores have a poorer selection than those in Sweden
A new report shows that the range of goods in a Norwegian average grocery store is just over half of what is offered in a Swedish store and of which the prices are higher.
“This confirms that Norway has higher prices and less variety of groceries than our neighboring countries. We are a sparsely populated country with great distances, and that is probably one of the reasons why this is so,” says Minister of Industry Torbjørn Røe Isaksen (H) in a press release.
A new report The SIFO Consumer Research Institute has written on behalf of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, showing that the sample of Norwegian grocery stores on average is much worse than in Sweden. On average, Norwegian stores have only 61 percent of a Swedish store and 66 percent of a Dutch store.
The differences are smaller if shops of roughly the same size are being compared.
“Much of the differences in product selection can probably be explained by the differences in store structure. In Norway, we have many more smaller stores than in Sweden and the Netherlands. The selection in the stores is also not identical, so the real selection that we have access to in Norway is larger than what is found in each store,” says Røe Isaksen.
The report also shows that prices in Norway are 63 percent higher for food and non-alcoholic drinks than in the EU.
On the other hand, Norwegian stores have over three times as good a selection in frozen pizza as the Swedish ones.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
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