Consumer, Coffee | It’s easy to feel cheated by the new coffee in the Rema 1000

Friele launched his “Sommerkaffe” in his Rema 1000. The blue colors on the packaging are no different from the blues we’ve gradually become accustomed to in summer beers, he writes. The newspaper online.

The packaging says “limited edition,” but what does that really mean?

An important detail is indicated in much smaller print, namely the weight of the package.

limited edition

– By using the term “limited edition”, companies can create the impression that the product is an innovation or something new, something that there is reason to inform the market about, says professor at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), Tor Wallen Andreassen to Nettavisen.

The word “Limited” can also be understood to mean that there is a scarcity of the product. There is a limited number here so hurry up before they sell out. As is well known, scarcity creates its own demand, he says.

Consumer Council Subject Manager Olaf Kasland thinks summer coffee is a different kind of thing we’ve seen before.

– The industry has been inventive and offers Christmas coffee, Easter coffee, and now summer coffee. They even call it a “limited edition”. Casland says this is just a selling ploy.

shrink package

If you look at the packaging of summer coffee next to your regular breakfast coffee, it looks the same. But when you read the packaging carefully, it appears that summer coffee only has 225g of coffee per package, compared to 250g in a typical breakfast coffee.

– I think it’s special that they choose to have a 225g coffee packet. The usual is 250 grams. There’s a good chance customers will think it’s 250 grams, says Casland of the Consumer Council.

Admittedly, the price per kilogram of summer coffee is lower than the price of regular Friel breakfast coffee.

– When the packaging is smaller, the price seems cheaper than it really is. That’s why it’s important to always check the price per kilogram or liter, says Kasland.

– It is not good that chains often make it difficult for us to be consumers. The fact that they, for example, make a slightly smaller version of the coffee packaging means that many people can feel a little cheated. It’s not good for customers and I don’t think it’s good for Rema and Friele either.

Kasland at Consumer Council gets excited about explaining package size.

– I wonder why they shrank the packaging when they made “summer coffee”. He says they should have a good answer to that.

– They don’t lie

Friele Kaffe is owned by coffee giant Jacobs Douwe Egberts AS (JDE) and is based in the Netherlands.

They state that they are making this coffee for the second year in a row.

– Friele Sommerkaffe Limited Edition is a specially developed summer blend that conveys the warm feeling of the sun with a refreshing, full taste, elegant acidity and notes of chocolate, Alexandra Iskandar writes in an email to Nettavisen. She works in the company’s Copenhagen office.

– But what does it mean that coffee is “limited edition”?

Summer Coffee is available in limited quantities and sold exclusively with one selected partner, Alexandra Iskandar wrote in an email to Nettavisen. She works in the company’s Copenhagen office.

That is why the coffee is made in limited quantities and is only sold in Rema 1000. But what exactly does it mean that the coffee is “limited edition”?

– We produced it on the basis of experiences from last year and with the aim of selling coffee during the summer, Iskandar writes.

The limited edition means summer coffee is sold out all summer long at Rema 1000.

– This was a rather strange explanation. They’re not lying, but the fact that summer coffee is “limited” to sell all summer speaks for itself, in the same way that Christmas coffee isn’t sold in the spring, says NHH professor Tor Wallin Andreassen.

There is no answer as to why this coffee package is 225 grams as opposed to 250 which is the usual package size, we got no answer other than the fact that the information is clearly stated on the package and price tag.

– Doubtful

Nettavisen also asked the Rema 1000 about its packaging size.

– Many products come in different sizes and at different prices because our customers are different and have different needs. But we must always offer them goods at a low price, writes Category and Purchasing Manager Line Aarnes in an email.

Someone is close to explaining why the package size is 225g instead of 250g, and Rema didn’t mention 1000.

– Sommerkaffen The price per kilo is 155.00 vs 191.60, so it’s probably questionable whether the consumer council here thinks we shouldn’t offer goods to customers at a lower price, Aarnes writes.