EXPLAINED: Three reasons why food prices in Norway are so high

Local Norway

11-04-2025

Not only is food in Norway already among the most expensive in Europe, but it's also rising in price rapidly. Food prices have risen by 8.6 percent over the past twelve months, with some foods like chocolate experiencing a particularly sharp rise, according to inflation figures from Statistics Norway.
A new report on the grocery industry by the Norwegian Competition Authority, the government agency responsible for promoting competition, has pointed to a number of reasons why food prices in Norway are so high.
The report outlined that weak competition in the grocery sector meant that supermarkets could charge more than they otherwise would. According to the report, Norwegians bought around 95 percent of their food from one of the three major chains – meaning Coop, Rema and Norgesgruppen have almost the entire market to themselves.
In its report the authority pointed to three obstacles which hindered competition in the grocery market as it made it hard for new chains to establish and offer customers lower prices.
Among the obstacles was import protection. Norway has a number of high tariffs in place to protect Norwegian agriculture. The protectionist measures apply mainly to meat and dairy products. For example, the tariff on beef is 344 percent, while the tariff for cows milk is 443 percent.
The competition watchdog has previously said the current protectionist measures needed to be reassessed, while public broadcaster NRK recently reported that the removal of tariffs
could lead to food being about 20 to 30 percent cheaper
.
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Import protection was the biggest barrier to better competition in the grocery sector, the watchdog said in its report.
'We have import protection that is intended to protect Norwegian farmers and Norwegian agriculture. But it also effectively protects Norwegian suppliers and grocery chains,' Beate Berrefjord, director of the Norwegian Competition Authority, said.
Furthermore, the process to import foods that aren't subject to tariffs was difficult, according to the watchdog. This makes it difficult to bring cheap food into Norway. It also favours the larger chains that have far more staff available to deal with the red tape.
Meanwhile, new entrants to the grocery market are effectively blocked from being able to find suitable premises. The big chains have used negative easements, which set limits on what a property can be used for, in order to block off potential locations for competitors.
Despite this practice no longer being allowed, the Norwegian Competition Authority reported that the biggest chains seemed to have found a way around the ban.