Little saffron is needed in this year’s luscious cats. Then you usually end up shelling out a fifty or a hundred Danish krone for a few milligrams of the noble spice. But if you travel across the border, there is money to be saved on the luxury spice. news’s random sample shows that the same bag of saffron from Santa Maria that is sold for NOK 41,000 per kilo at Swedish Ica is sold for NOK 93,200 per kilo at Norwegian Oda. TWICE AS EXPENSIVE IN NORWAY: The saffron bag costs NOK 46.6 in Norway, and NOK 20.5 in Sweden. But it doesn’t just apply to Oda. Saffron is consistently priced higher in Norway than in Sweden. At Meny, the price per kilo of saffron is between NOK 103,333 and 264,000. If you use 1 gram in the bun dough, you can save around a fiver on shopping in Sweden. – A product like this that people don’t think about – We asked a thousand people a few years ago about what they bought in Sweden. Of all the products that were mentioned, I never heard anyone mention saffron, says Frode Steen. He is a professor of social economics at the Norwegian School of Economics, and has worked extensively with food prices and competition in the grocery market. – To put it that way, at least it’s yellow, and it fits better with the Swedish flag than the Norwegian one, says Frode Steen. Photo: Sindre Øye Helgheim / news – The focus on the price difference between the typical border products and the Norwegian ones is great. Norwegian chains will be very careful not to price those products more than they have to. – But saffron is probably a product that people don’t think about, says Steen further. – So it is simply easier to get paid better without anyone complaining? – Put another way, Steen chuckles. news has been in contact with a number of grocery chains. No one will explain why the price difference is so great. Higher consumption in Sweden While Sweden imported 17 tonnes of saffron in 2023, Norway imported only 245 kilograms, according to Sveinar Skjevdal at the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy. While Sweden imported 17 tonnes of saffron in 2023, Norway imported only 245 kilos, according to Sveinar Skjevdal. While Swedish importers pay approximately NOK 4,900 per kilo of saffron on average, Norwegian importers pay around NOK 10,800 per kilo. So, more than twice as much. At the same time, Sweden mainly imports saffron from Spain, while Norway imports from Iran. – It is cheaper to import from Spain than to import from Iran, at least we can say that, says Sveinar Skjevdal. – But it could also be that it is due to a different quality, that it is packaged in a different way, or that the Swedes import in much larger quantities. Less competition in Norway Frode Steen points out that there is less competition in Norway than in Sweden, and that the players in the Norwegian market are smaller and more local. Norway has a much more closed food market where Norwegian customs protect both producers and chains, according to Steen. Growing and harvesting saffron is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. The picture was taken in Kashmir. Photo: Reuters Creative This puts Norwegian importers in a weaker position in the purchasing process in the international market. – Large chains such as Aldi and Lidl have joint purchasing routines throughout Europe, and receive the same conditions for many products in Sweden as they have in Germany, says Steen. – But when they tried in Norway, and they tried, they actually had to import for customs protection, which made everything much more expensive. The lack of large international players with meat weight in purchasing processes therefore means that Norwegians have to pay more for the saffron than their sweet brother in Sweden has to. – So the fact that Norway is outside the EU is one of the reasons why the flea cats become a little more expensive? – Yes, so either we have to pay more, or we have to use turmeric. Published 12/12/2024, at 15.25 Updated 12.12.2024, at 15.27
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Tens of thousands cheaper kilo price for saffron across the border – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
