Grocery shopping turns out to be about twice as cheap in Costco Canada, compared to Costco in Iceland. Stöð 2 reports.
In a television show on the Icelandic TV station Stöð 2, which follows Icelandic families who’ve moved abroad, it seemed that Kristín Harpa’s and Sveinn’s food basket is much cheaper in their current home of Halifax, Canada than it is in Iceland.
The husband and wife are used to doing their grocery shopping in Costco, prompting the show’s producers to purchase their own products, such as milk, bread, meat, fruits, eggs, and vegetables. The results showed that the Icelandic Costco food basket costs a total of 8108 Krónas (USD 76.20/CAD 94.41), while the Canadian food basket cost 3642 Krónas (USD 34.23/CAD 42.41). The Icelandic Costco products were thus approximately 123% more expensive than in Canada.
Price differences alone don’t necessarily tell the entire story though. The wage differences between the two countries were later factored into the equation, with OECD’s statistics showing that Iceland has approximately 16% higher wage terms than Canada. This, however, amounts to little change to the price comparison.
