What’s going on with Ben&Jerry prices in Estonia? Price in Rimi (Estonia): 9,79 euros, price in Colruyt (Belgium): 5,99 euros, 3,33 euros when buying at least three…

46 comments

  1. Iceland – 696ISK = 6,42EUR. So don’t even get me started about the prices being high due to Estonia being a small market etc..

  3. if there’s anything good about these prices it’s really hard to eat 100g sugar from a single pint of icecream anymore

  9. When I lived in the Netherlands, I noticed that the food prices for any kind of processed foods were lower than in Estonia… only basic stuff like potatoes, onions, carrots, broiler, milk etc were marginally cheaper here.

  17. Country of origin: Netherlands

    Anyway, most groceries have gone up 50-200% in the last year, so it’s not unusual. Combination of energy prices and price gouging.

  18. Imma keep repeating this, **fuck ben & jerry’s,** they were loudly against the expansion of nato when we we’re joining (https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/28/opinion/foreign-affairs-ben-jerry-nato.html) and even few weeks before the active phase of the russo-ukrainian war kicked off their opinion was still the same (https://twitter.com/benandjerrys/status/1489393235655106562)

    Buying their whipped lard with flavorings is basically saying fuck you Estonia, you and others who joined NATO in the 90’s and after deserve to get violently invaded by russia.

    —

    That garbage should have been removed from the shelves the same time russian products were.

  21. Price of Ben & Jerry’s in Finland is the same range as here (which in itself, of course, shows that food pricing can be wild in Estonia) so it isn’t just Estonia.

    My guess would be part greed (so overpriced), part transport costs (I think they’re registered in central or Western Europe and produced there as well, so much closer to transport to Belgium and France), part because it’s a famous brand and stores think they can sell it as a premium product, hence more profit in the price.

    The flavours are interesting, but it’s not that great and Estonia in itself has pretty good ice cream on its own. La Muu makes interesting flavours as well, especially in their shop where you can try stuff they don’t sell in stores.

    Also Rimi has gone off road with their pricing in the last year. Idk what’s going on there, but many things are so much wildly more expensive than elsewhere – and that’s with the price gauging and inflation.

    I really wish some person, who has knowledge about pricing and profit margins in one of the large chains (Prisma, Maxima, Selver, Rimi or Coop), could do an anonymous AMA and share the backend info on what’s really going on. It REALLY seems that there’s a lot of price gauging and profit increase in the background of “everything is more expensive, we need to raise prices” and I wish someone, with actual knowledge, could share whether or not they really are price gauging or are there hidden costs we’re largely unaware of.

    Also, our consumer protection org once again showing that price gauging isn’t an issue they need to take an interest in.

  22. Electricity is/was really high in Estonia so probably keeping those things frozen takes a lot of money.

  24. Seda võid küsida poekettide ostujuhtidelt. Kuna nt Selveri ostujuht otsustab, kas tootja/maaletooja pakutud hinnaga toode lubatakse letti müügile. Kuna edasimüüja üritab ikka võimalikult suure hinnaga selle müüki paisata, siis vaatame ostujuhtide poole. See on selline lihtsustatud kujul kireldus, mismoodi see protsess toidukaubanduses käib.

    Aga hoopis huvitavam küsimus on see, et miks pro-Putini hoiakuga firma tooteid nii tahetakse meil Eestis osta?:)

  26. We’ve discussed the appeal of B&J ice cream before and for many people here, it’s a splurge/childhood fantasy fulfilment thing, since it wasn’t available here when most of us were growing up, but we saw it in movies & TV. Now we’re adults with adult money & €10 is not really that much to spend on a luxury item.

  27. Food in Estonia is just stupidly overpriced, In Finland people on average earn like 2-2.5x as much as we do, yet atleast from my experience traveling there over a dozen times food there’s only maybe like 30-50% more expensive…

  28. Probably due to import costs, plus small batch, plus small market, etc. Or maybe even mistake in the system. It’s always better to buy local ice cream. cause it’s definitely better than B&J.

  29. Estonia has a ridiculous amount of retail space per person. And instead of closing down unprofitable stores they’ve decided to hike up prices instead. Yes, costs are getting high because of electricity and employee salaries, but Lidl and Prisma still continue creating new stores. No idea who is going to buy all that food?

  30. Prices are skyrocketing in Estonia within past two years. Unfortunately the excuse is high electricity bills although all those food store chains made record profits. Pure greed and stupidity.

  32. My gut tells me that transport towards the boarder of Europe might be one reason. Not sure but I guess refrigerated trucks import more to Estonia than they export. If you need to offset the cost of an empty truck going back to the West then that might be a reason.
    Besides that the other reasons stated earlier might add additional towards the high prices even more.

  46. Estonian screenshot:

    “Country of origin: The Netherlands”

    “Producer: Unilevel company in Hungary”

    So, first of all, all that ice cream is taken from the Netherlands to Hungary, and then from Hungary to Estonia. No wonder why it’s so expensive. /s

    Also, it’s made by a company (Ben & Jerry’s) that indirectly supports the invasion of Ukraine. Though Ben & Jerry’s is a subsidiary of Unilever, Unilever itself does not support the invasion of Ukraine, while Ben & Jerry’s was allowed to maintain its independence when Unilever bought it.

    Non-Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, incl. Estonian ice cream, is more affordable and much better.

Leave a Reply