Strong concentration, soft discount stores in Norway

The retail of food shows and exceptional degree of concentration in Norway. There were 442 modern stores for each 1 million people in 2006. Knut Gartland, head of marketing and communication from the Norwegian Nielsen subsidiary tell us about the details. Food retail is growing at a faster rate then inflation. Total sales amounted to NRK 117 billion last year, which was 6 per cent more than in 2006. The total number of stores has stayed between 4,100–4,200 in the past three years. Lidl is selling its 50 stores to the locally owned Reitangruppen group, which will integrate these into its Rema 1000 chain of soft discount stores. Norwegians are among the Europeans who go shopping the least frequently, visiting modern stores on only 13 occasions per month. Norwegians are not looking for promotions or low prices, with only 9 per cent of consumers choosing to visit a new store because of a promotion. Brand loyalty is high in Norway. The most important market trends are health, convenience, environmental consciousness and fair trade. An increasing number of people not only talk about health but also do something about it. Sales of ready for consumption fresh foods increased by 30 per cent in a year. The market leader retail chain Norgesgruppen held a market share of 39.2 per cent last year. Coop is in second place with 23.8 per cent, followed by ICA with 17.4 per cent and Rema 1000 with 17.3 per cent, which was also the largest discount chain. Norgesgruppen joined EMD, the largest European purchasing partnership last year. Regarding store types, soft discount stores account for 47.8 per cent of the food retail market., while supermarkets hold a market share of 29.2 per cent. Hyper markets account for only 10.7 per cent of food retail.