Many Swedes have a sweet tooth and the average Swede consumes around 40kg of sugar per year. This is, however, far less than the average American who consumes around 70kg per year. In the UK, the figure is surprisingly lower at 32kg.
The Swedish sweet tooth is reflected in the supermarket shelves stacked with candy and cakes and the freezers bulging with ice cream. A very popular type of sweet in Sweden is something called ‘lösgodis’. These are individual unwrapped sweets that you can pick and mix with a small shovel into a paper bag.
The popularity of these types of pick and mix sweets is huge. In 2019, Swedes purchased candy from the leading brand Cloetta, for 1.6 billion crowns in the months of April-May alone.
However, corona has had its impact, as in most areas of life. The idea of eating exposed, individual, potentially-fingered and spat on candy has reduced in popularity. In the month of April this year, consumption dropped by 70%. In June, the drop was 40% compared to the year before.
So does this mean Swedes have stopped eating sweet stuff? Probably not. Individually-wrapped candy has increased in consumption, after an initial drop. Ice cream remains very popular. In fact, Sweden is the country in Europe that eats the most ice cream after Finland. In a normal year, Swedes consume 12 litres of ice cream per person. And baked goods also remain popular. During the early days of the pandemic, sweet yeast was totally sold out everywhere, suggesting that Swedes were at home hungrily baking cinnamon buns and other sweet delights.
So it seems that the Swedes are still getting their sugar fix even if the ‘lösgodis’ counter remains intact for a while longer.
A question to my Swedish readers. What is your favourite ‘lösgodis’? I have to admit mine is the fudge cube.
Watching the Swedes 