The state-run chain raises its prices twice a year, in September and March, and price increases are entirely dependent entirely on suppliers’ price changes, as the monopoly itself does not seek to earn a profit, with any margins it takes spent only on running its stores and paying its staff.
“It could be a lag effect, but the way I see it, suppliers have done everything they could to keep prices down,” Ann Carlsson Meyer, Systembolaget’s CEO, told the TT newswire.
Dan-Magnus Svensson, founder of Brygghus 19, a microbrewery in Karlshamn, said that drinks producers like him were willing to see their margins shrink if that meant keep sales steady.
“We don’t dare to raise them,” he said of the prices at which he sells to the monopoly. “We raised them a bit in September but not in March, we don’t dare to make any changes. We will shrink our margins instead, the alternative would have been to lose sales, which would have been worse.”
Here are the price increases for each type of drink, not including tax:
Wine: up 2.6 percent
Spirits: up 1.7 percent
Beer: up 3.1 percent
Cider/mixed drinks: up 3.0 percent
Alcohol free: up 1.7 percent
Total: up 2.6 percent
Here are the prices increases for some of the wines of offer:
Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill champagne: up 389 kronor to 2,299 kronor.
Tre Apor white wine box: up 16 kronor to 189 kronor
Leva Chardonnay white wine box: up 5 kronor to 219 kronor.
Rocca di Montemassi red wine box: up SEK 25 to SEK
Quercia al Poggio red wine bottle: up 38 kronor to 189 kronor
Stranger Zins Zinfandel: up SEK 8 to SEK 99
Viña Maipo Chardonnay: up SEK 4 to SEK 65
Timbach Riesling: up 18 kronor to 179 kronor.
Source: Vinsmart/DN
For reference, inflation stood at around 12 percent at the beginning of the year.