As many media outlets are reporting, there has been significant attention surrounding the boycott of Swedish food retailers Ica, Coop, Hemköp, Willys, City Gross, and Lidl.
What can this boycott mean for food prices and for the retailers themselves?
Niklas Egels Zandén, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Gothenburg, tells Swedish Radio that
I think it can have a pretty big effect.
He believes that the boycott gives politicians an opportunity to act and opens doors for politicians to engage in conversations with companies when people are upset. He also thinks that companies subject to boycotts are a bit nervous because they want to be good actors and do good things for their customers. A boycott means that customers are dissatisfied and sends a strong signal to companies.
Political initiatives
There are political initiatives, such as the recent report published by Minister of Industry Ebba Busch (KD), "Improved Competition in Public and Private Sector Activities (SOU 2025:22)" [1], which raises questions about how Sweden can improve competition, including by giving the Competition Authority (Konkurrensverket) the power to intervene in markets or industries where competition is not functioning well.
It remains to be seen how the boycott will play out, but one thing it has already achieved is that politicians have seen a need to act on the issue of increased competition to curb price increases on food items.
