Consumer, Christmas soda | Big Check of Christmas Soda: Lots to Lose by Choosing ‘Wrong’

(The newspaper online): There are not a few liters of Christmas soda being sold in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Nettavisen’s extensive price check shows that you can save a lot, even when it comes to the same type of soft drink.

Nettavisen examined the prices of 77 Christmas soft drinks from a wide range of manufacturers.

The cheapest one we found was priced at just 9.93 per litre, while the most expensive one is More than ten times the cost. The latter is made in a very special way.

See all prices below

Best seller

Many people have a big commitment when it comes to Christmas soda. Opinion about the best soft drinks can be very strong. But the best seller is the Hamar and Lillehammer Christmas soda. About a third of Christmas soda drunk comes from this brand.

The price of the best-selling product varies a lot depending on whether it comes in a plastic bottle, glass bottle, or box.

The cheapest are 1.5 liter plastic bottles, with the lowest price being per litre

• NOK 21.27 per person without sugar
• NOK 21.93 each with sugar

Here, the lower priced chains Extra, Kiwi and Rema 1000 have identical prices. This was also the case for other Christmas sodas we found in all three chains.

Nettavisen also checked prices at Coop Mega and Meny supermarkets. Coop Mega is 6 percent more expensive From the discount series, while The menu is 18 percent more expensive On these bottles.

Rolls Royce of soda

Manufacturer Ringnes refers to the bottles as Rolls-Royce type. This is also reflected in the price. Here, the price per liter is about three times the price of the same soft drink in 1.5 liter bottles.

The bottle is the most unique, it is a Rolls Royce packaging for special occasions. For many, Christmas Eve wouldn’t be perfect if they didn’t have Christmas soda in a glass bottle, says Josephine Hagaton, Christmas drinks director at Ringnes.

She emphasizes that it is the shops that value the shops.

See the answers from the chains below

This is the price per liter for a bottle of Hammer and Lillehammer Christmas soda with sugar:

• Additional: 58.79 NOK
• Kiwi: 58.79 NOK
• Rima 1000: 58.79 NOK
• Mega cup: 60.30 NOK
• List: 66.36 NOK

Bottles make up just over 20 percent of all Christmas soda sold, according to Ringness.

– Lovers want the bottle

And a glass bottle is a must, according to Christmas soda enthusiast Sven-Erik Lee. At least on Christmas Eve. Lie has set up a Facebook page for everyone who loves Hamar and Lillehammer Christmas soda. To date, the site has more than 1,400 members.

-For Christmas showers, only use a glass bottle, Lee says.

He estimates he will drink between 40 and 50 liters of Christmas soda before Christmas is over. He realizes that glass containers are a little more expensive to produce, but he doesn’t think that explains the entire price difference.

– It should not be expensive in a glass bottle. “I doubt it is very expensive to prepare soft drinks in a glass bottle,” says Sven-Erik Lee.

Very cheaper

Not surprisingly, the chain’s own brands were among the cheapest in the test. The cheapest price Nettavisen found was for a 1.5-litre plastic bottle of Coop Christmas soda in red without sugar at just NOK 9.93 per litre.

At the other end of the scale, we found Christmas soda from Grimstad brusfabrikk at NOK 105.76 per liter. We found it in Mina.

Meny also has the largest selection of Christmas soft drinks, with a total of 34 different types Nettavisen checked the prices at Meny.

• List: 34
• Mega cup: 16
• Extra: 9
• Kiwi: ninth
• Rima 1000:9

All chains have informed Nettavisen that they have more varieties of Christmas soda. Selection may vary somewhat from store to store. In addition, many of the labels in stores were mispriced and were therefore not included in the test.

The most expensive soda

The Christmas soft drink from Grimstad brusfabrikk has the highest price per liter ever in the Nettavisen test.

– In any case, it would be nice if it wasn’t the most expensive, says general manager Ida Konradsen at one of the country’s smallest soda factories.

But making soft drinks like this costs money. We want to use good raw materials and this comes at a price. “We make craft soda, just like a craft beverage,” she explains.

She says they only use fresh and natural ingredients.

– We use organic black currants from Molstad farm and bergamot from Simone Sabadi in Sicily. That’s why soft drinks cost a little more, she says.

Double production

Spices and flavors are important.

“We extract the flavors of anise and orange peel, and squeeze the ginger ourselves,” says Konradsen.

The soft drink is pasteurized so that it does not ferment. Shelf life is two years.

-We started five years ago. This is a side hustle to the operation we do in our restaurant and other jobs. At first, we got soft drinks from Denmark, but then it took off, says Konradsen.

Christmas atmosphere

Obviously, people are willing to pay for expensive soda. Last year they sold 10,000 bottles of Christmas soda which disappeared in just three weeks. They have doubled production this year.

– What do you think about it being more expensive?

-Our soft drink is not like other soft drinks at Christmas. A bottle will do. With commercial soft drinks, it may be necessary to pour more.

– What makes this a Christmas drink?

-We think it tastes like Christmas when there’s anise, orange and blackcurrant in the soft drink. We get Christmas ribs from it, and these are the Christmas spices. And then it’s beautiful and Christmas red. It is sour, not sweet. “We call it adult soda,” Conradsen says.

-We think Christmas soda is a bit of fun, it’s funky and not like other Christmas soft drinks. We tend to change the recipe from year to year. For a year we used wine grapes from Mainklang in Austria. “Another year we used apples from Asker,” she says.

And the chains answer this:

Extras: – We are very happy to have the cheapest soft drink for Christmas, especially when we know that this is an important product for many of our customers, says Communications Director Harald Christiansen.

– It’s great that the sugar-free version is the cheapest. It is also pleasing that Coop Mega is the cheapest supermarket chain.

kiwi: – Traditionally, there has been a greater willingness to pay for local varieties. Julebrus are clearly one of the most important seasonal products in the run-up to Christmas, says Kiwi communications consultant Nora Helgesen.

In recent years, many Christmas soft drinks have become sugar-free, and some brands have some with sugar and others without. In Kiwi, sugar-free soda is almost always cheaper than the sugar-equivalent alternative. This also applies to Christmas soda, she says.

Rima 1000: -Christmas soda is an important product for many at Christmas. That’s why we offer a wide range, in different price ranges, much more than what was included in this test, says category and purchasing manager Line Arness.

– Grans Julebrus without sugar, our cheaper alternative which also scored top in the taste test earlier this week, was not included in this test, says Arnes.

menu: “We will have the best and largest selection of all kinds of Christmas goods, and we are keen to source good and cheaper alternatives,” says Mini’s communications director, Nina Horn Henn.

– There are strong geographical preferences and lots of sentiments and traditions associated with Christmas soda, and we will have the largest selection so everyone can find their own ‘favourite’. Our largest stores have up to 60 different types of Christmas soda, while the average store has up to 20 different types,” she says.