How do you save on food in Norway?

Buy in a low-price chain, cook at home and throw less away. Food in Norway costs 33 per cent more than the EU average, but the three low-price chains sit within about 3 per cent of each other, VAT on food is 15 and not 25 per cent, bottles carry 2 or 3 kroner of deposit, and the average person still throws away 35 kilos of edible food a year.

Updated 30 September 2026. Every figure has a source and a check date at the end of the article.

Where to shop

The three low-price chains — Rema 1000, Kiwi and Coop Extra — are where Norwegians buy their food, and the independent basket tests keep landing within a few per cent of each other, so the nearest one is usually the right one. A kiosk or a petrol station charges far more for the same bottle of water. Which chain came out cheapest in the latest test, and what a full basket costs, is in our comparison of the chains.

What actually makes the basket cheaper

• Own brands: First Price, Eldorado and Coop X-tra are the same shelf, a third less money.
• Whole vegetables instead of washed and sliced ones, a whole chicken instead of fillets, oats instead of cereal.
• Frozen fish and vegetables: the price is stable and nothing is thrown away.
• A list, and shopping after dinner rather than before it.
• The chains apps: the weekly offers are in them, and so are the member prices you otherwise pay extra for.

The reduced shelf and the apps

Every shop has a shelf of items close to their date, marked with a red sticker at 30 to 50 per cent off in the evening. Apps that resell what a bakery or a shop has left at the end of the day work in the cities. And a date is not a verdict: on a product marked best før the food is judged with your eyes and your nose, which is exactly what people who waste the least do.

Throwing away less is the biggest saving

A Norwegian throws away 35 kilos of edible food a year — down 18 per cent since 2016, but still a shopping basket a month. What ends up in the bin is leftovers, fruit and vegetables, bread and milk, and the usual reason is that they were forgotten in the fridge or bought in excess. Cook the amount you will eat, freeze bread in portions, and keep leftovers in sight at the front of the shelf.

Take the deposit back

Bottles and cans are worth 2 kroner up to half a litre and 3 kroner above, and the machine stands inside the shop. A week of drinks for a family is a hundred kroner off the next shop — how the machine works and what it refuses is in our article on pant and waste sorting.

Eating out costs the most

VAT on food in a shop is 15 per cent, on most other things 25, and a restaurant adds its own labour to a country with high wages — that is why cooking at home is the single largest saving available to a visitor. What a café, a beer and a restaurant meal cost is in our guide to food prices in Norway, and tap water is free and safe everywhere: the practical basics.

The first shop after you arrive

A starter basket for a rented flat is bread, butter, cheese or another pålegg, coffee, oats, pasta, rice, a bag of frozen vegetables, eggs, oil, salt and a bottle of dishwashing liquid — one trip to a low-price shop, and dinner is covered for several days. Painkillers and plasters are cheaper in a pharmacy than in a kiosk, and a pharmacy is also where you get advice without an appointment: Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø.

A week that does not hurt

Breakfast is bread or oats, lunch is a packed matpakke, dinner is one pot: fish or chicken with potatoes or pasta and frozen vegetables, twice the amount so the second day is free. Coffee from home in a thermos instead of two cups bought out is the difference between a normal week and an expensive one. What Norwegians eat at which hour is in our article on table manners.

You may also want to read

• Which supermarket is cheapest: Kiwi, Rema 1000 or Coop Extra
• Food prices in Norway: groceries, coffee, beer and restaurants
• Recycling and pant machines in Norway
• Cost of living in Norway: rent, electricity, transport and food

See also our ranking: the best burgers in Oslo.