RIMI was a

grocery store A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...

chain in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The discount supermarket is best known for its slogan, "Consistently low prices" (''Faste lave priser''). The supermarket business can trace itself back to 1977. It was founded as the discount grocery store chain RIMI 500 by Norwegian businessman

Stein Erik Hagen Stein Erik Hagen (born 22 July 1956) is a Norwegian businessman. He is chairman of Orkla, where he is a major shareholder, and holds large stakes in Steen & Strøm, Jernia and Komplett through his family company Canica. According to the news ...

. Starting in 1992, Hagen sold an interest in the chain to the Swedish group,

ICA AB ICA Gruppen AB (publ) (; "ICA Group"; from ''Inköpscentralernas aktiebolag'', ) (formerly Hakon Invest AB) is a Swedish retailer franchise with a focus on food and health. The group also owns a bank, real estate division and a pharmacy chain. T ...

. In 1998, Hagen and ICA reached an agreement to sell a half interest in the business to the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

-based group, Koninklijke Ahold N.V. In 2004, Hagen sold his remaining interest in RIMI. From 2004 to 2014, RIMI was owned and operated by ICA Norge. In 2012, Ahold sold its share of ICA Norge to ICA AB, leaving Rimi under fully Swedish ownership. After years of heavy losses and multiple attempts to rebrand itself, ICA AB sold all its shares in ICA Norge to

Coop Norge Coop Norge SA is a Norwegian cooperative. It is owned by 117 local cooperatives with approximately 2 million members. The company has its headquarters in Oslo. History The first cooperative store in Norway was opened in the 1850s and, on 27 Ju ...

. The new owners soon decided to discontinue RIMI, and have started a program to convert all Rimi stores to their own retail concepts.http://www.dagligvarehandelen.no/2015/starten-på-norgeshistoriens-største-butikkomprofilering (Norwegian) RIMI Bergen, Norway

References

Supermarkets of Norway Norwegian brands Retail companies established in 1977 Retail companies disestablished in 2015 1977 establishments in Norway {{Norway-company-stub

See also

References