RIMI was a

grocery store A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop or grocer's shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a retail store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday US usage, however, "grocery store" is a synon ...

chain in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. 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 ''Forbe ...

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

ICA AB ICA Gruppen AB (; "ICA Group"), founded as Inköpscentralernas aktiebolag (), 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. The company was started in 19 ...

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

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

-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 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 June ...

. The new owners soon decided to discontinue RIMI, and have started a program to convert all Rimi stores to their own retail concepts, and as a result the name of the shop continues only in the Baltics.

References

Supermarkets of Norway Norwegian brands Retail companies established in 1977 Retail companies disestablished in 2016 1977 establishments in Norway {{Norway-company-stub

See also

References