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Whole Foods, Iceland and whaling

Skyr isn't carried in too many American stores, but the Icelandic yogurt definitely has its fans. It is thicker than conventional yogurt, largely because it is strained, much like Greek yogurt. You are most likely to be familiar with the yogurt if it is carried at your local Whole Foods, where it is packaged into small containers and flavored like conventional yogurts, with berries, vanilla, etc. Despite the generally positive reaction from consumers, Whole Foods no longer promotes the fact that they carry Skyr, or any other Icelandic products, because of the company's offical policy of dissapproval for Iceland resuming commercial whaling last year.

The average consumer, perhaps the average Skyr fan, in the US isn't aware of the whaling issue and because Whole Foods hasn't promoted it, they're not likely to - especially because Whole Foods is planning to stock more Icelandic products this spring. Whole Foods will be carrying Nói Síríus chocolate easter eggs in approximately 70 stores. To entice WF to stock the eggs, Nói Síríus seems to have offered them at almost no cost, as the marketing director of the chocolate company said "There are no profits involved, this is first and foremost a sales experiment." More will be imported next year if they prove popular. Whether Whole Foods will be promoting them now, or in future, is still unknown, though it certainly seems like it would be a good business strategy to promote the products you carry if you're going to carry them at all.

Filed Under: Business, Stores & Shopping, Did you know?, Ingredients
Tags: america, business, chocolate, did you know, easter, Iceland, icelandic, islands, shopping, stores, stores-and-shopping, whaling, Whole Foods, Whole Foods, Iceland and whaling, WholeFoods, WholeFoods,IcelandAndWhaling

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

Annie

2-26-2007 @12:28PM Annie said... Why would anyone want to buy Icelandic chocolate? It makes no sense to me. Do they grow chocolate? Do they have a great source of dairy produce like the Swiss and Belgians?

Annie
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Yehudi

2-27-2007 @12:27PM Yehudi said... They have 5000 items in their stores and choose who they will actively promote. Prime reason for not promoting Skyr is that there isn't enough supply as it is. Whether to choose to promote Icelandic chocolate over other items or just stock it will be a straight up economic decision.
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Ima

3-09-2007 @1:16PM Ima said... Anyone who has tried the Icelandic chocolates knows they are different from the most of the chocolates available here in the US. Especially the milk chocolates, and that might be because the dairy is different over there, tastes different and is worked differently. MMMMMMMMM can't wait!

I have also heard that supplies of Skyr are low, they just don't have the capacity to produce it in much larger quantities. But I am waiting patiently for Skyr to arrive at my local Whole Foods, there is nothing like it : )
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3 Comments / 1 Pages

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