Why Are the Supermarkets in Denmark so Terrible? 

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As a Dane who has traveled a lot (in the US, too) I have to say, I prefer Danish supermarkets over foreign hypermarkets. I find American malls and supermarkets overwhelming and stuffed with unessescary and unhealthy, processed food. And the fact that you often have to use your car to get there … All in all I suspect the American supermarket-strategy to be a big contributor to health issues as overweight/obesity. So, no thanks to hypermarkets in DK. I’d rather pay the extra 2-10 %.

Since I do not have a car or a driver's license, it is essential that I can shop within easy walking distance. A situation where car drivers can get stuff cheaply in huge stores, and the rest of us will have to make do with a few expensive places is a nightmare scenario to me.

I have visited US 6 times and I noticed the difference between Danish and American supermarkets. Supermarkets in the US are generally much bigger with a wider selection of goods and the staff are generally more friendly. But it's my impression that many Danes like smaller local stores rather than bigger stores that you need to access by car. Mind you that many Danes don't own cars and walk or take their bike to the grocery stores/supermarkets.

My personal view / rebuttal: As a person who lives in Copenhagen and doesn't own a car, I am extremely happy that I don't have to drive out of the city to do my shopping. And shopping in places like Bilka or Føtex - the places that come closest to the hyperstores - is not really a better experience for me than the smaller shops in the city. I also think that we Danes have different expectations/wants in terms of customer service. Going to the US, customer service to me as a somewhat typical Dane, often feels over the top and way too "in your face". I'm always like "just leave me alone and I will let you know if or when I need your help." Higher wages obviously leads to less staff. Would it be nice to have someone packing my groceries for me? Sure, but not so much if I know that person is hardly making a living wage. It looks like this reality could hit the US rather soon - considering the labour shortage and the rising minimum wage across the pond. Heck, if I was living outside of major US cities, I'd probably be better off working for 15 USD/hour than working a minimum wage job in Denmark. As for the lack of competition, that is probably the biggest concern for me. Inflation is dropping right now, but prices in Denmark are not. You are probably right that Danes don't have much desire for variety. I could probably get behind having 50 different types of cakes to choose from, but I can't be bothered to have 40 different kinds of mayo or oatmeal. The death of Irma is probably a sign that in general, we tend to shop for price over quality. Now we just need some supermarkets that actually brings us low prices. Come to think of it, the US has its own issues with low quality food, but it would probably take up too much space for me to get into stuff like high fructose corn syrup, additives, bread etc. Maybe part of the reason for those poor quality issues in the US is exactly that people have to drive out of the city to do their shopping and so they only shop once a week or less, hence the need for additives to not have the food go bad... One bad example of supermarkets "expanding" has been seen in Denmark over the last 10-15 years: You can now get types of bread and pastry in supermarkets that you could previously only get at a proper bakery. I maintain that the stuff you can buy at the supermarket is of a much lower quality than what you could get fresh at the local bakery. And now quality bakeries are going out of business like hot bread...

I think you're missing some of the finer points. The whole idea (backed up with loads of studies) of having a lot of items messy in a basket is that it increases sales of said item, compared to when it is neatly organised; it basically looks like it's a clearance sale. It's not laziness, but business.

As a Norwegian,i was completely blown away when i grocery shopped in Denmark while on vacation there,on how much more options there were and higher quality to the groceries there were compared to Norway!

I work in a supermarket and while we keep hearing about the bad experience of costumers , absolutely no one is talking about the staffs experience. Its an absolutely demotivating and downright stressful job when costumers treat you like shit and blame you for every little thing in the store, or when you spend an entire day reorganising shelves and making sure it looks neat and tidy and the next day it looks like a grenade went off. Its really not hard to try and keep it looking good as a costumer as well. We do our best, but its a damn ungrateful job.

Such an interesting video to watch. I don’t think the law is the main reason though - just preference. If danes liked big stores there would be more Bilkas. I personally prefer smaller shops like netto. I don’t miss having a bigger selection as it tends to be mostly processed foods like having 50 kinds of cookies or tomato sauce. If you bake and cook from scratch it just becomes annoying wasted space. I also do appreciate the sustainable element of danish shops too - way more organic foods than any country I’ve been to, fewer foods=less food waste+ lower energy use and a lot of “Almost expired” and “Grimm but good”-options. And I really do appreciate that I have several small shops within biking distance. I don’t think the carfree lifestyle would be possible for a lot of people if it wasn’t for the small shops. ❤

As a grocery store employee, I respectfully disagree :) Understaffed, yes. If the employees seem rude, it's because the customers are too. The tone of the customers is getting extremely harsh.

I strongly disagree with this. Hyper Stores kill small communities because stores can't compete. It also encourages rampant consumerism which isn't healthy for the environment or people in general (in my opinion). Also, neatly stacked products is not a concern for me - that sounds extremely superficial. The only thing I can agree is an issue is fresh produce but if I had to go to a hyper store to get fresh produce, I would never get any.

If you, like me, is a pensionist living in a smal rural town, and has no car, it is priceless to be able to walk only 300 m to "Min Købmand". And how else can i get the gossips?

I absolutly hate the big stores. They kill the small shops.

I respectfully disagree with your opinion. I don't think bigger stores would solve anything. If you don't have a huge family those buying in bulk stores just ends up being even more expensive due to the food waste. I don't have a car or a licens and I have bad knees and back so I am very happy with smaller stores that is close to where I live so I don't have to worry too much about my disability. Meaning I can go grocery shopping in the morning and in the afternoon I can do other stuff. The stores you say are better because they are bigger and better do to the variety, they would completely ruin me because of the walking distance inside alone. Bigger dosn't mean better and I highly doubt that a bigger selection of the same prossed food is a good idea. Also when I worked in fakta our biggest problems were understaffed, teenagers expecting to do nothing while they were at work, bad rules from corporate (meaning that we had to rely 70 percent on teenagers because they are cheaper to hire), truck drivers being a*holes and trying to get things for free in order to get our products at a reasonably time and lastly tiny budget for how many staff we could have in the store at certain times and if we went over my boss would get reprimanded badly by corporate. All these things where way we struggled every day to do our jobs properly. And I am sure these problems has only gotten worse over the years since. Maybe next time you make a video like this get some statements from the workers 😀 Other than that thanks for the video and good job guys 😀

From what I have gathered from elsewhere in Europe, Danish stores are by far my preference. Other countries have suuuper narrow aisles, no time to pack your groceries, messy in terms of where items are located and everything seems sweaty, but that might just be because I travel in summer. I have never encountered any rotten or even expired food and why should every store be a bilka? Just gimme a Rema1000, Lidl or Min Købmand and I am a happy camper.

Hi :) It all boils down to the fact that if giant supermarkets as there is in the US became legal in Denmark, all the smaller merchants in the smaller towns would disappear. Therefore, we have to choose a balance that may not suit everyone's needs. I don't want to lose my grocery store in my town with less than 1000 inhabitants (but has a lot of tourists from spring to the beginning of autumn). I don't even like shopping in Bilka because of its size, and even with my car, it would take me almost 45 minutes to drive to Bilka, which is a little south of Aalborg, in the area called City Syd, and where opposite my grocer is only approx 150 meters from where I live. I can get my groceries from my grocery store, which I think has a reasonable selection. It is extremely rare that I need a special item, and can often have the special item ordered to the store to the delight of others and me. There have been articles in the media about empty shelves of vegetables and fruit that Denmark imports from southern Europe and Morocco in the winter months, but due to the cold weather there this year, when the harvest has failed, but I have not experienced this at my grocer. :)

More options would just offer more processed food, junk anyway. I would rather pay a litlle more and have the small shops and the small communities survive.

The items in a cardboard box is actually what defines the difference between a discount store and a non-discount store.. its logical. Its been like this for discount stores for many many years.. it cost extra to have people line up stuff nicely on a shelf.. guess who has to pay for this extra labour, excactly, the customer. The reason its same company having many different stores is also logical, a company like Salling or Coop can buy in bulk, hence buy cheaper, than a chain with only 5 stores.. thats also why you can find products labeled with the stores own brands, like Xtra and Anglemark in coop.. a small store chain wouldnt be able to do that. Hyper markets would kill off small towns faster than has been the case the past years.. a affect much more visible in USA where towns turn into litteral ghosttowns as shops close, then workplaces vanish and property value drop.. in USA you also wont find a hyper market in a town with a population of a thousand people.. and if you did it would litterally be the end of both the town and the hyper market itself. I feel your perception here is based on big city living, from big city USA to Copenhagen.. but Denmark is comprised of smaller towns that in no way could facilitate a large hyper market.. but here in Denmark we dont have that many big cities.. example the 145th largest town in Denmark has 4500 in population. Another thing, again showing its clearly based on a big city view is the thing about the staff.. i smaller towns the person behind the counter knows most people by name, giving a very special shopping experience.. in a hyper market you are dealing with a indifferent person and is litterally just another number in line.. my small town has 3-4 grocery stores and in each store they greet me by name, take time for a small casual talk as they scan my groceries, i wouldnt want it any different. I almost hope you some day try living outside Copenhagen, it would without doubt make you generalise a bit less.. funny enough, prices in larger cities are not cheaper than in smaller towns though one would think so.. that brings me to the last thing i want to mention.. many grocery store chains have different weekly sales for east and west Denmark, partly because prices actually often are cheaper in West Denmark. Regarding quality you are very wrong, what you perceived as lower quality as Americans, are what we here call food without the huge amount of addatives and chemicals you find in especially American food.. or its because you just buy stuff and what you put in your basket is imports and not danish produced.. Quality is food produced in Denmark. I rarely disagree with your views, but regarding this topic i have to disagree strongly.. Its rather funny that you think a huge store requires less staff than many small stores.. because its nowhere near how it works.

Maybe you are shopping the wrong places. Where I live, the stores are clean, the staff are so sweet and helpful and they will bend over backwords to help us as customers. As for the sizes ..... everything is bigger in the US, but we don't need these huge stores here. And to be honest; we have done quite good so far!!

As a dane thinking of groceries as bad never occured to me until you said it. But I think, for groceries where you want to carry things on your bike anyway, going on a regular basis, I think not having to walk an hour though an IKEA sort of establishment seems fine for getting some eggs. Also hard to imagine any of these stores in a residensual district, if they were multible floors or so. You do still have shopping centers in a few places for centralized shopping, just not for food. Also don't think decentrilized stores are any easier to restock if they are bigger with as many of them in the countryside, where danes for instance care about local doctors preferably to a few centralized doctors, so with stores as well. For the spoiled food almost out of date, I think is more that danes prefer a bargain, and to not waste food, than that stores can't or won't restock it, so it seems like a better product if it's almost out of date, since you as a buyer don't need the extra time anyway, so why spend money to watch the food you already ate, not go bad? not worth it to buying bargains. Also, potentially, danes are so informal it most likely seems natural to stock items in batches, since it wouldn't add much, to add a ton of glitz to milk buying, so danes probably don't care enough to complain that items are stocked in a basic way. Directness is preferred. Your assumptions caused a lot of thoughts, and I think some of them, are that you prefer big things for their own sake more than we do, so you look for it more.

As a Brit I can see the thinking behind this. UK now has a lot of big supermarkets, Asda, Tesco Morrisons etc. that sell everything. People are no longer going to the local butcher, greengrocer, fishmonger etc. and as a consequence a lot of town centres are struggling to keep going. Obviously the popularity of online shopping contributes to the problems facing small High St. shops but that would be difficult to restrict by legislation.

personally, I wouldn't shop in a larger grocery store.. 5000m2 is just a bit too big for me to like shopping there, but I do it when I have to... as far as options go, I don't have a problem with a small selection... in fact I prefer it that way... it means I spend less time in the store and I'm out quicker... I DO NOT LIKE TO GO SHOPPING... in case anyone was wondering....

Sound like a Copenhagen problem than a Danish problem.

Living in a small city with just 400 residences I'll definitly take higher prices over having to drive further to shop. Any saving I may have on the purches prices will be lost many times to fuel the car, and the lost time is just imposible to put a price on.

I have lived several years in the US and I definitely prefer Danish grocery stores. Yes the selection in the US may be 10x bigger but it doesn’t matter to me since once I find what I like I tend to stay with that brand/taste. Therefore, it takes me 10x longer to find my favorites to start with, it costs me a lot to buy stuff I end up not liking, and it takes extra time each time I go shopping because the stores are too damn big. Also, I am incapable of meal planning for more than 1-2 days, so I truly appreciate the smaller and more conveniently placed Danish stores. However, the grocery store parking lots are much better in the US 😅

I also disagree. Rema 1000 is a really good shop in my area, with a lot of fresh organic food items. It is known for quality and a large variety of organic vegetables. I see it in a different way: most danes do not go shopping for a nice shopping experience, moreover just to use 5 minutes to get our goods. :)

I'm sorry. But you just completely miss the mark with this video. We don't want big stores. Also.. filthy? Rude staff? Where the heck do you guys shop?

I feel like your views are a bit Copenhagen biased. I live in Aalborg (4th largest city) and rarely have the long lines you’re talking about. When I lived in a smaller town, the local shop was also a centre in the community, where customers knew the staff and vice versa. Also, I’d prefer multiple easy-to-access small shops any day over only having to go to something like Bilka.

On the flip side: Was just listening to a podcast from last year that encouraged people to donate food or money to Buffalo, NY, since the shooting they had shut down the only supermarket for a large community, turning it into a real food desert 😬

I’ve NEVER seen rotten food in a grocery store, and I wouldn’t want some random person groping all the food JUST to make it "pretty"! 🤢

Very insightful video. Thank you for making this :)

Why would we need Hyper stores?

Thorough and enjoyable video, keep it up!

Thank you for videoes once again. Keep on making this its good knowledge 👌

Thanks, guys! I’ve always been surprised and curious about this phenomenon.

So well written, so articulately delivered. Outstanding stuff. 🙂

Very informative- keep up the great content 😎

Your RU-vid channel is so helpful! :) Thanks for all the detailed information!

They are NOT! They suit the danes We don't generelly want big stores, but smaller shops, close by. Going to fx Bilka is AWFULL.. HATE it. Why are you critisising? It's a different culture!

I work with food quality and food safety for one of our discount supermarket here in Denmark. From a food safety and quality perspective, the fewer products you have in stores, the better! Every product gets a frequent check (food analysis, sensory check, quality development etc.). The frequent checks are important to monitor the quality and guarantee food safety as well.

Whenever I visit another country than Denmark, the US included, I'm always frustrated with how bad the supermarkets are. I haven't watched the video yet, so I'm looking forward to your take.

I for one would not be using a hypermarket. It would require customers to own a car, because they would take up so much space that they could only be built in the outskirts of towns or in industrial areas. Even if there was a train station right by the entrance, I'm not gonna go for a train ride just because that store had 15 brands of butter instead of the 3 brands they have at my local supermarket. Danes don't want hypermarkets, we want to be able to walk to the store. When I see pictures of American urban landscapes, I feel bad for the people who live there. Humongous buildings, surrounded by even bigger parking lots. It's ugly as hell, and all just to get a wider selection. No thanks.

As a Brazilian I DESPISE shopping for groceries, I almost always had to go really far for things, I’m so glad my region somehow developed in a crossroads for supermarkets, so in recent years I got much better options, but still, they are huge, busy, always extremely crowded and influence people to buy in bulk and quantities, leading for way loooonger lines and lazy employees, I worked at one, we are not incentivized to be fast, it’s so weird. Hate shopping here.

Hey Guys, I love your videos, I'm usually in agreement with your views, but this time I must disagree, you are talking from a point of being from USA, we Danes actually prefer smaller retail stores, I've travelled very extensively in the States, and for me a shopping day at Walmart is not my taste, it's too big, and loaded with unhealthy fast foods, prepared and canned foods. I usually go grocery shopping in Netto, it's close to my house, and it's got all I need. I've never experienced it being Dirty or having spoiled food on the shelves. Maybe it's different in Copenhagen, but it's not like that in Vestjylland. Concerning Irma, time had just run out, it's 20-30 % more expensive, not good in a climate of price hikes on energy, where people save where they can. Again you have your opinions as Americans, and you are entitled to them.

Many danish supermarkets are also franchise stores, meaning the local owner has a lot of influence on how clean and presentable a store is. Two stores from the same chain in the same city can have wildly different shopping experiences, even though they have the exact same selection of products. For example, I prefer Nettos selection, but will only use one of the 4 Netto stores in my town, because they others are simply too messy (and far away on public transport).

Thanks for sharing , have a Nice weekend

Thanks for the videos guys. I have never been thinking about this when im out shopping for food in DK. I would like for options though when food shopping!

I love that law ❤ Bilka/Føtex is the worst place to shop for groceries in the entire country 👌

First,thanks for all your videos. I enjoy your sharing of living in Denmark as Americans and introducing Denmark in general. I am sure you have helped the Danish tourist industry but getting viewers so interested in the country that they come to visit. I found your comparison of American and Danish groceries a bit simplistic. True most Americans grocery shop with a car and thus can get more items at a time, but grocery shopping in a city such as New York where people tend to walk to grocery shop and probably have little storage space in their homes run into the same issues you discuss

Norwegian here. Supermarkeds in Denmark are waaay better than what we have up north. But yeah.. Both suck.

I love the views you put on our little country. Professionally I am a urban planner and respect the research you have put into this video. Great to have a discussion about the way we choose to do things in Denmark. And also having focus on both sides of the coin. I think the majority of danes find our retail structure and our planning act a huge succes - primarily because it provides stores in even small village etc. The way retailers choose to do things inside the shops is another story. The idea that "if it looks cheap - it is cheap" doesn't work for me - I simply can't distract myself from the real pricetag. Everytime you see a really good local shop manager, they get good feedback from the costomers.

I don't like the idea of bigger supermarkets. Chains like Walmart completely annihilates the local community and forces everyone into cars instead of just cycling or walking. As soon as you deregulate, you will see small town losing their local supermarket.

I always loved going to the supermarket when I was visiting the States. So many interesting things on the shelves! I do think you can have too much of a good thing when it comes to variety, but to each their own. While I agree that downtown supermarkets, especially in Copenhagen, can be very disappointing, I've personally found that to be less of a problem as you advance out of the city. Hardly ever have I found empty shelves or understaffed stores, and I've lived in Søborg and Solrød, respectively. So maybe the law is failing somewhat, because it does seem to make a difference which area you live in, at least in my experience.

I learned a lot of new things, thanks! I see the problem in us paying a ton and having fewer options, but it is also my understanding that even if you gave us more options we would stick to what we know. I like having the different supermarkets even tho i would have to go 2 places to get my things, but if i really need to i would.. I personally HATE grocery shopping as it makes me nervous and overstimulates me a lot, on bad days i will have a full on meltdown on my way home and break apart the moment i get inside - this is why i like the sizes of our supermarkets, they are small and they only have a few select brands, but i know my way around, i know what i need and if they don't have the brand i need i know the others well enough to make a snap decision - i cannot stand going into a Bilka as it is way to big, noisy, smelly, messy, and has way to many things.. unless I'm just "browsing" alongside my mother in law who needs something in there, then i can relax as i am not searching for something specific. I would like to see these big hypermarkets, but i would also fear i would get way too overwhelmed way too early. Also, i am the kind of costumer who picks up things from the floor, place things as they should be, sometimes even "trimming" if I'm getting something that is hiding way in and hard to reach, i most often go to cashier with "miss placed meat" or milk, as it is gross and rude of the idiot who left it in the toys section..

The biggest factor you don't take into account is the size of Denmark's population. Denmark has just under 6000 million and Germany for example has over 83m. the same goes for the UK.( regarding variety of choice). As for as Irma, most people shop there for the "special items" that aren't available elsewhere. The rest of their shopping they buy at the discount supermarkets. If Irma made a profit which they haven't done for years and people supported them, they wouldn't have to close down. Irma have their shelves neatly packed ( items out of boxes) and their prices are about 33% higher than the discounters.

Seriously does there need to be 90 diffrent kinds of breakfast cereal or yougurt? Does there need to be huge ugly box looking stores? Nope. Huge stores aren't all that.

Im very happy about the small shops, dont want the huge ones 🙃🥴😜

The limited selection of items in Danish stores is the thing that I notice most. I thought it was because some big French and German brands don't bother to make Danish labels for their products, because the Danish market is too small to make it worthwhile. I didn't realize that the size of the stores was also limited, so there wasn't as much shelf space. I agree that Danes also aren't adventurous in trying new foods, except when a major food fad hits. Especially canned goods - Danes don't expect canned food to be any good, so there is no market for producers of high-quality canned goods. I find a big selection of different items by going to the ethnic supermarkets - there are asian, middle-eastern, and eastern european markets where I live, that have completely different foods for sale. These stores have to print Danish labels, with the ingredients and instructions translated to Danish, and put them on each individual can, jar, or bag. People also go to separate butchers, cheese shops, bakeries, and farmers markets to pick up special items. It is also exciting to make a special trip to Sweden or Germany to pick up new items that aren't in Danish supermarkets.

When we lived in Copenhagen in 2008-2011, we shopped at Metro which was a version of Costco. It had a lot of stuff the smaller local stores did not. Is that still there?

Thanks for the video. Living in Denmark for 6 months now and this always confused me!

I am not very impress with many Danish supermarket in greater Copenhagen. They are often understaffed and messy, and I have many times come home and discovered that the food I just bought had gone bad. I don't mind the size of the stores, but I miss specialized stores in my town, like a Butcher for example.

First of all - I love your vids! I'm a danish swede who moved to Denmark in 2014 and now I'm about to move back (this time to Malmø). Thanks for explaining Planeloven. When I started coming to my summerhouse by Storebælt in 1996, if we arrived on a Saturday afternoon, we had to remember to shop in Sweden on the way, since EVERYTHING was closed on a Sunday. That changed with Planeloven. What I will miss in Sweden is actually all the small grocery stores! In Copenhagen and suburbs there is almost a grocery store on every corner, it makes life easy. I'll visit a larger/more expensive/greater selection store once or twice a month for special items, but most of my daily use I can find in my grocery store around the corner. I love it. Your vid helped me understand why there is this difference just across the Øresund. Keep up the good work!!

Grocery store work in Denmark is tough in a store that is understaffed. I remember working in retail when i was younger, and i was instructed to never escort a costumer to a particular item if they couldn't find it, this was because it was more essential for me to restock shelves as fast as humanly possible as opposed to offering costumer service. The most scarce resource when understaffed is "time", so only the most essential and profitable tasks are prioritized - costumers waiting in line with their groceries are less important to cater to than making sure "milk" or "Potatoes" are restocked.

Very interesting and informative. I wasnt aware of these things other than yes our selection is very small and quality is lacking in fresh produce very often. The card boards depends on the kind of supermarket. Discount markets usually do this, but not other kinds.

I could never work at a supermarket knowing how rude customers are. Im kind and friendly to all workers no matter the attitude. Also when the worker is super kind and helpfully you will see some entitled sh*t coming up to them rude and mad that they didn't have anymore of a certain item like who the hell do you think you are - some people should be banned from shopping.

When it comes to the topic of stores being understaffed and the employees working there coming off as rude, it’s a multitude of different problems. Most of the workforce in the grocery stores are younger people and for a lot of them it’s their first job. Their don’t work full time, as most of them have school during 0800-1530 hours and have a couple of shifts during the week. The grocery stores likes getting people in the age gap 15-17 because they get paid less than when they are over 18. After they turn 18 they usually terminate their contract unless you made a good a really good effort. Personally, I admire the younger people who can work as a cashier for a year or two at that age, with that schedule, cause it’s hard work. Especially also with alot of the costumers being so annoying, rude or straight up dehumanizing. Nobody wants to be there, not the costumers who just had a horrible long day or the employees that still have 3 more hours to go. It’s usually not a nice experience for anyone cause everyone involved either want to get their groceries as fast as possible or their pay and be done with it. So if anything isn’t up to par with what the costumers believe it should be (even if it’s fair or not) alot of the time someone who has almost nothing to do with it other than working in that store, gets the blame for it. Overall my point is that working in a grocery store in Denmark is definitely not my preferred job, and I don’t think it is for most of the people working there.

We don't like the giant stores, that's why.

Oh, I totally agree with you guys - I thought it was just me being picky but I am so disappointed with the grocery stores and the quality of products. I'm used to Whole Foods Store and Trader Joe's, and Sprouts. Is there anything similar to these stores or farm shopping? I would like to see Costco in Demark!

Having lived in a bigger city for some years while I studied, and having stayed in England a few times now, I would actually like it if we had a nice mix of smaller local stores and bigger stores. I personally like Bilka in size but the problem is that they don't actually offer more variety than a normal Føtex does. I personally like Tesco. It's Bilka sized, but have much more to choose from across all food categories. Wouldn't want US size stores, but definitely UK size ones (along with more UK speciality foods of course :) ).

Yeah, Danish grocery stores kinda suck when comparing to American stores. I'm not saying that we need 15 types of butter like you see in America, but the deli sections or specialty items will not impress an American shopper, let alone a French or Italian tourist. And customer service range from mediocre to really bad, especially in discount stores. But I think it really comes down to preference. Most Danes prefer that the grocery store is located close to your home, and that it is accessible not only by car but also by foot or on a bike. This allows you to pick up the kids from the kindergarten, walk to the store to buy dinner, and walk home. Lots of smaller communities and towns fight for the survival of their local store. Some even invest or right-out volunteer at the local grocery store to keep it open. If the price for a local, smaller store where you meet your neighbor and the kids school teacher is higher prices and smaller selection, we prefer the smaller store.

My childhood village of 200 inhabitants 5 km from the nearest town have it's own shop. And so do many other small villages in Denmark. A lot of places, youd don't need a car to go shopping. And my ny home town of 13.000 inhabitants have a complete selection of grocery stores, except for hypermarkets. You can get everything you need in my small town, which also have a rich diversity of retail stores. In sweden you do have megastores, but a lot of places you will have to drive for a long distance to get to a grocery store. So which is better?

In the old days before the supermarkets, things were much better. We had small stores wich were specialized in their field. Like fishshops, Cheese, candy, tea and coffie, wine and tobacco, toystores aso. The wararity were much bigger and the storeowners were specialists and had a pride about quality. The towns were lively and busy. The supermarkets made ghosttowns. Bigger supermarkets will just make that problem worse.

Hi. The percentages you showed for the different retail chains are not accurate for 2022. Aldis failure to stay in the Danish market is also more closely rooted in their inability to provide recognizable brands for the customers instead of knock-off brands. Most research show the danes to have a high brand loyalty. Most competing supermarkets got about double the turnover compaired to an Aldi of the same size.

bad thing about more options, is that more food gets thrown out... in the states, 40% of all food in stores, is never bought and thrown out... FORTY PERCENT!!

Interesting didn´t know this. Yes was thinking about Bilka hypermarket in Field´s that is 12.000 m2 but you explained this exception. Also this explains to me why that Bilka feels a bit weird planned out with no connection and/or integration between the sections. To top it off for a hypermarket that size the food section feels both really small and not the best variation. The variation sure is better across the waters in Sweden.

I'd love big stores - but not if that means that the smaller ones nearby closes (Witch it would). The cleanliness and messiness of the store seems greatly depending on where its located - looking at the amount of sad/angry smileys it's easy to conclude that especially in the bigger cities (with more throughput) is worse. Not strange since they are undermanned (I will agree with that). Danes loves discount - and one of the things with discount stores is that they somehow have to look like discount (Some anyway) , hence the cardboard boxes. The "rodekasser" is a marketing trick, makes people think its way cheaper that in reality. Anyway - always fun to hear your views :-)

I absolutely detest huge stores like Bilka where you have to walk for several minutes to get to the product you’re looking for

I see some of your points with some places looking a bit messy, sometimes a few too little staff and not always as many options, but if there were way more giant grocery stores, many of the small local stores in the small towns might not be able to compete at some point/have to close, and many likes to have a local store, so they might not have to drive an hour to get to a store, if they only need bread, eggs, Milk or other essentials, and maybe some people like not having to walk an hour through a store, Just to buy a few things. Maybe some people think the workers at the stores could be nicer, but also The media has talked about that workers in the grocery stores might not always have the best experience themselves at work, because some of the costumers could be much nicer, not take it out on them if they are tired, in a hurry, some things are unfortunately sold out, think they should be able to fix everything etc.

interesting video. Yes Coop and dansk supermarket are sitting on the majority of the supermarkets. And yes Danes prefer to buy on discount and as far as i understand the sale of organic items are going down at the moment in Denmark. But if i compare Aldi in different countries they in general have some items standing on pallets, so does Lidl. I also would say that the level of friendliness towards costumers in a rural Lokabrugsen often is better compared to a lidl or netto. Last time an article wrote about it in a Danish newspaper it also said that on average Danes pay 1/3 more compared to the average EU citizen

Is this a Copenhagen thing? I don't feel like the stores over here in Jylland are terrible

I worked in a grocery store in Denmark, which shall not be named because I don't know if things have improved since I worked there. When I worked in one of those stores, they told us that if customers were to find something that was past the expiration date, they would be given a bag of coffee beans for free, and not the cheapest either. They also expected two people to actually be able to check all the food-items in about half an hour before the store opened for business, every day, so as you can probably imagine, they ended up giving away a lot of free coffee, to the point where they started instead giving away bags of coffee beans that were *also past the expiration date*, with a nice little sticker placed on top of that date... I can only hope things have improved, because that seemed kinda sketchy to me. I only worked there for a month, though, and I haven't set foot in that store again (mainly because I also live, like, 160 kilometers away from it now)

Hey Guys :D Great video! Have you looked at the marketing law about cupons? We learned in Economic Class that we pay alot more for grocieries in Denmark because of the prices for marketing. Because the Super Market Stores can set a higher prices for advertisement because of the oligopoly in Denmark.

This is a very interesting take on this subject, and i do suspect one of you guys work with this topic 😂

I don't own a car, I don't own a big box freezer, I don't have a spare room to spare for a pantry, so I shop for 2-3 days at a time. Why would I want bigger market further away from home?

My husband comes from a smaller city in Norway, and they’re the main street is dead…. There are two shopping malls on the other side of the river outside the city, and it’s very little shops in the center anymore.. they just don’t survive, there are kebab shops, and one or two cafés, and one small, grocery store and pubs, but the center of Notodden it’s pretty dead! It’s kind of sad actually.

Great that you offer some perspective. Can I ask, Robe Trotting, do you like to cook (from scratch-ish) and how often? 🙂 The answer to that could put your stance into perspective. People who cook a lot often know the best places to get fresh vegetables (never NETTO 😆) I am in favor of Planloven because hypermarkets are stressful and takes forever to walk through. I would rather get my basic groceries from rema 1000 and buy cheese or fish from the local specialty shops or fruit directly by the farmers. You have a funny pronunciation of coop. It's Co-op. Cheers

My local Netto is inventory wise like any other Netto, a complete mess. The store chain itself is often defined as a "rodebutik" which translates to a messy store. Un top of having the same product 2-3 places in the store. My local one changes their youth workers like I change underwear. I never see the same person behind the counter twice. I don't know if the job is too stressful for the staff to stay more than a week or if the staff is simply so bad at it that their job that they get fired on a weekly basis but I'm almost impressed by how many different people I've been seeing since it opened.

Thanks for explaining something that has been nothing me for years. I’ve gotten used to the small stores, though I’d prefer if there was atleast one grocery store where I could find decent tortilla chips and salsa

Not sure if others mentioned but many Danes get different goods at different stores. Bread from the baker, meat from the butcher etc. This furthers reduced need for massive stores.

I realy enjoy being able to walk / bike to my local discount "super" market. That said you are completly right in that it is not a very plesant expiriance to shop in these small discount places and i rarely if ever buy anything other than "the basics" there.

Another great video with some interesting insight. I don't agree completely with you on this one as I like supermarkets here in Denmark generally. My local Netto doesn't carry thousands of product lines, but what it does stock is well priced and decent quality. I can almost always get whatever I need to make whatever dish I want, sometimes I have to substitute ingredients but that's fine. I'm a Brit so I'm used to supermarkets with a huge choice, but I reckon that probably comes at a cost i.e. massive food waste. I'd hazard a guess food waste in Denmark is lower. Anyway I can see in the comments you've really rattled some people so funny hearing all the Danes getting so defensive 🤣

We sure have problems with somewhat of larger food store monopolies and high food prices in Sweden…but compared to other countries/cities, I’m often shocked at the state of many stores, the high prices (especially knowing the locals don’t really earn a living salary) and how early stores often close. Stockholm is only expensive when buying bottles of alcohol in restaurants/bars these days. Food prices have actually gone down the last 40 years and salaries increased in Sweden but obviously inflation is a screwing things up big time. Lidl is doing great in Stockholm. We have a nice chain, Willys. Our food stores are open 8-22, often 7-22/23. Everyday except midsommarafton, julafton and nyårsafton. In addition, we have a much wider selection in stores compared to many countries (gluten lactose free x amounts of brands ethnic vegan etc) plus the smaller stores, lots of ethnic stores, online ordering is very popular. I think a larger regular Swedish food store has double the amount of cheese compared to Norway. Finland has great lactose and gf free varieties too. But. Swedes are adventurous eaters and Sweden is a test market for new products so if Danes don’t want to try new foods, stores won’t sell them obviously. Within walking distance in my regular suburb I have 3 food stores, a bunch of ethnic stores (Polish Asian Middle Eastern etc) and a quite decent larger shopping/food/service mall. Stores that are not cleaned nor organised don’t make it. The veggies you showed were not bad nor rotten. Just a little tired. Rotten looks dark/blue/green and smells awful. Danish pork is considered cheap low quality in Sweden. I’m sorry my friends but it’s the truth. Danish pork is almost white, watery, anaemic, thin and I’d never buy it. Not sure why it’s even sold because it’s not good PR for such a nice country with great food. Swedes prefer Swedish 🍖 🥩

Mixed feelings here…I agree with a lot you say…but at det same time I wouldn’t want to shop i mega stores full of crap options. How ever I do sometimes miss a good french supermarked 🥰

Living in DK after many years abroad, I am happy with the size of danish stores. I don’t need 18 alternatives to a product.

How are US food grocery prices, in comparison, to the day to day food prices in Denmark? Is it cheaper?

More shops closer to me. I do not need Tesco or any of the other big companies.

I love to see and hear about what Americans think of what is on offer abroad. Anything that you two upload,which helps me to learn, about a foreign land, I appreciate.

I live In Denmark 🇩🇰 and I have to say the quality of the product s are very low for the most . I find it hard to get good quality product and international good products . Some Arabs supermarkets in nørrebro have many international products and they have some good and not so good products

I don't think a larger selection of groceries equals better shopping. Our brain shuts down, when there are too many choices to make, and I really don't need more than three ketchups, four mustards, or seven types of rugbrød, when I'm shopping. I definitely prefer my local Netto. I used to love Bilka 40 km away, but it's not worth the trip. I end up feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the amount of groceries and end up buying loads of useless stuff that I don't need.

it is the same as the last piece of cake that no one will take. When everything is in order, you don't want to destroy it. So no sales. we call them impulse boxes and they are changed often to tempt you with things you didn't know you were missing