What’s the most effective way to encourage people to eat more vegetarian food options? Swedish grocery retailer Hemköp thinks it might have answer – placing them in the meat aisle.
That’s exactly what it’s done with its newly renovated flagship store Hemköp City at Åhléns City in Stockholm. And the retailer says its initiative with vegetarian products in the meat aisle is being rolled out at a number of stores in Stockholm in the autumn.
Hemköp’s thinking is that placing vegetarian and vegan products alongside meat will inspire more people to become ‘flexitarians’ by showing them alternatives.
Today, almost every other is Swedish flexitarian and every fourth wants to eat more vegetarian food. Last year sales of vegetarian products increased by almost 50 percent in Hemköp’s stores in Stockholm. The grocery multiple says it wants to create a road map to help Swedes “eat more green”.
“This is the starting point for a new focus on Hemköp. We want to encourage more sustainable choices and see that we as a chain have a major responsibility in this, and vegetarian food has an important part to play,” says Thomas Gäreskog, CEO of Hemköp.