What are supermarkets for the poor in Sweden like and why have they been so successful in a rich country?

With the highest inflation in the last four decades, Swedenone of the richest countries in the world, is also feeling firsthand the effects of the global increase in the cost of living.

With a historic annual escalation of 11.5% in November, food and energy prices have put a part of the 10.4 million inhabitants in the Nordic nation in trouble.

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And the future does not look very encouraging.

“The Swedish economy and households will be under pressure in the coming years,” Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said shortly before Christmas.

The government has warned that the country will enter a deeper and longer-lasting recession in 2023 than previously estimated.

With record high electricity rates, difficulties in getting food at reasonable prices and a huge increase in mortgage payments, many Swedish households are facing a situation they were not used to.

“A Greater Need for Support”

This has been verified by Johan Rindevall, head of the social supermarket chain Matmissionen, in Stockholm, who during this year saw the number of customers double.

“We have noticed a greater need for support among the people we know through our organization,” Rindevall tells BBC Mundo.

To access discount prices through a membership, people have to have a low level of income in relation to the rest of the Swedish population.

Even, says the social entrepreneur, there has been an increase in clients who -despite having a higher income than the minimum established by the membership system- have contacted them to ask for their support.

Johan Rindevall says that the organization reduces food waste. (KIMBERLEY TORCHIA).

A developed country like Sweden does not define poverty by the standards used in other parts of the world.

For example, according to the estimates made by the World Bank, the country has practically no poor people.

Sweden uses the European Union definition of “poverty risk”. From this perspective, a person is in a situation of risk when they live with less than 60% of the average income of the country.

According to recent figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics, about 15% of the Swedish population is currently in that situation of riskwhile 20 years ago, it was only 9.6%.

They are not people who go hungry, warns Rindevall. They are people with a standard of living “significantly lower than that of the rest.”

“We find families that don’t have the option to cut costs. They don’t have savings to fall back on, which forces them to lower living expenses,” he adds.

Many times they stop buying nutritious food to make ends meet.

Do not throw food in the trash

Considered a social enterprise, Matmissionen has as one of its main objectives to reduce food waste.

As it does? Sell ​​products donated by food companies that would otherwise go to waste.

GETTY IMAGES.

Thus, clients, many of them retired, unemployed or recently immigrated, they pay one third of the original price for each product.

In addition to having eight stores in different cities, serving 25,000 members, the organization distributes food to 25 shelters.

The greater demand for their services this year, explains Rindevall, is related to the fact that they have opened new stores, more refugees have arrived from the Ukraine and, without a doubt, due to the unstoppable increase in inflation.

Source: Elcomercio