Opportunities and barriers for alternative food distribution and sales in Sweden

Abstract: The grocery market in Sweden is mainly divided between six different retailers who together have some 95% market share. The rest of the market is divided between thousands of different actors, selling groceries in other ways than the main retailers. This 5% market is interesting to investigate and the purpose is to identify the opportunities and barriers for those alternative food distributers. By identifying a variety of smaller actors on the market and conduct interviews with them and collecting information about them, certain areas of interest can be compared between them and the major retailers. The five areas of interest focused on are origin and traceability, shelf-life and safety, suppliers, logistics and packaging. To give a fair comparison, a short summary of the four major competitors on the market is presented and used for comparison with the smaller retailers. This along with consumer aspects and product development knowledge helps to draw conclusions around the selected actors and their advantages respectively disadvantages on the market.