Danish supermarkets in price war, property prices still rising despite high supply and more news from Denmark on Wednesday.
Denmark’s supermarkets in price war
Denmark’s large supermarket chains seem to be starting a minor price war, with the Netto chain, owned by the Salling Group who also own Føtex and Bilka, announcing a new round of price cuts on more than 100 items.
Some of the items included in Netto’s price cuts are minced chicken, cream and chocolate milk.
On May 1st, Netto and Lidl, both low-price supermarkets, announced plans to cut prices.
Netto cut the price of butter, beef, yoghurt and nappies, while Lidl cut prices on more than 200 items. 365discount, which as the name suggests is a discount supermarket, cut prices last week, following an early price cut in February. Meny and Rema1000 have also both cut prices recently.
Morten Bruun Pedersen, chief economist at consumer advice group Forbrugerrådet Tænk, told the Ritzau news wire that the price war is about attracting customers.
“We’re seeing now that they’re following each other closely. If the competition does something, they do the same. But it’s also a fight to exhaustion. How long can everyone keep up?,” he said.
Danish vocabulary: priskrig ‒ price war
Thousands of teens in Copenhagen to celebrate end of term sober
The end of the school term in Denmark can often be a boozy affair for teens involved, with heavy drinking often ending in fights or brawls.
This year, 6,000 students in Copenhagen have signed up to an alcohol-free event in Fælledparken ‒ the first dry end-of-term event the municipality has hosted for teenagers in the city.
“We’re really proud that so many people have chosen an alcohol-free event,” said Viktoria Lundehøj Hartmann, co-founder of the UngFrekvens organisation which is responsible for the event.
Copenhagen has taken inspiration from Aarhus, which has hosted alcohol-free end-of-term events for students for five years now. Hartmann said that the goal is to show the teens that it’s possible to hold a successful celebration without alcohol.
“Two years ago you could go out on the last day of term and see young people on the ground throwing up in Fælledparken. There were fights and fireworks. It was unsafe,” she said.
The event takes place between noon and 6pm today, Wednesday.
Danish vocabulary: afgangselever ‒ students on their last day of school
Property prices still rising in Copenhagen despite high supply
In April last year, an 80 square metre apartment in Copenhagen would have set you back an average of 4.8 million kroner. This year, that figure is six million, according to the Boligsiden property website.
Boligsiden’s property economist Birgit Daetz told the Ritzau newswire that this shows clearly how fast prices in the capital are rising.
“This is caused by rapidly rising demand in a market where supply has been very low,” she said. “To put it this way, we’ve hit the extremes in supply and demand, which has given extra fuel to rising prices.”
Prices rose by 1.9 percent between March and April alone, despite the fact that supply is also starting to rise.
Daetz added that the property market in Aarhus is in a similar situation, albeit to a slightly smaller extent, and that prices have risen on all kinds of properties, not just apartments.
Danish vocabulary: boligpriser ‒ property prices
Danish thriller series an international hit on Netflix
The second series of the Danish thriller Kastanjemanden, called the Chestnut Man in English, has proven popular on Netflix internationally, with the series becoming the fifth most streamed show on the site in a language other than English.
The series premiered on Thursday and despite only being available for four days last week it still racked up 2.6 million global streams.
It’s the most-watched series in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Czech Republic, and is top 10 in 28 different countries. The series is based on Søren Sveistrup’s debut novel of the same name.
The series, which starts with a figurine made of chestnuts found at the scene of a murder, is available with English subtitles.
Danish vocabulary: kastanje ‒ chestnut