The tour has come to the grocery chain Coop to respond to the boycott. In an interview with SVT, Anders Torell, acting CEO, explains how he looks at it.
Several Swedes are currently at full speed with boycotting big grocery stores.
Chains such as ICA, Coop, City Gross, Willys and Hemköp have become a goal for a boycott because of the rising food prices.
Coop’s proposal for lowered food prices
At Coop, suggestions have previously come out with suggestions on how the government could help stores to keep prices down. Among other things, reduced employers’ contributions were proposed for young people, as a large part of the labor that exists at grocery stores is just young.
Another proposal was reduced costs for supervision and regulations, which has increased in recent years according to Coop.
In an interview with Express suggests Coop’s press secretary Marcus Björling Furthermore, that lowered VAT on fruit and vegetables would make the healthy goods cheaper and thus create incentives for customers to shop more healthy.
Read more: Coop’s new message in the crisis
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Coop strikes back towards the boycott: we are no food giant
Now have Anders TorellActing CEO of Coop, struck back against the boycott. In an interview with SVT News, he says that Coop is not at all “food giant”.
– Coop consists of 26 associations that have four million members who are our owners, but we are a large company, he says and continues:
– We within Coop have no profit interests, but all the money we get to go back to our members and our owners. It will be a bit illogical for us to be part of this debate from this perspective.
Their industry colleague ICA went out in an advertisement on the previous day and dismissed the idea that they would be a food giant.
“What really is a food giant? Not ICA, at least,” you could read.
Read more: ICA’s message – in the middle of the boycott
Don’t miss: Coop urges all customers: Don’t do this
“Remains to see”
Although Anders Torell at Coop chooses to comment on the boycott, he also says that they have not noticed any of it yet.
– It remains to be seen what power this boycott gets. In our stores we do not see these patterns than it affects us financially, he tells The channel.
According to the industry organization DLF, Coop, ICA and Axfood accounted for 90 percent of total food sales, according to SVT.
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