The prices that the various McDonald’s restaurants in Norway charge for their menu offerings vary from place to place.
This is shown by research that Nettavisen has done recently. The fast food chain’s popular Big Mac menu costs, for example, eleven percent more at the restaurant in Steinkjer, compared to another McDonald’s in Stavanger.
Nettavisen has also found price differences between restaurants within Oslo.
Rune Nikolaisen is the man behind the website Gjerrigknark.com. He is concerned with saving money, and gives other tips about this.
Personally, he does not eat at McDonald’s, nor does he think that most people think about whether the prices are the same elsewhere.
– They might expect it to be the same price, so I understand that people can be surprised, says Nikolasesn to Nettavisen.
See how much a Big Mac menu costs at your local McDonald’s in the overview at the bottom of this issue.
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– Thought it was the same price everywhere
Nikolaisen says that if he were to buy food in a fast food restaurant, he would rather think about which chain rather than which restaurant he should go for.
In the streets of Oslo, Nettavisen meets Tor-Martin Gard (25) and Louise Gard (26), who have just been to McDonalds and bought food. They are surprised when we tell them about the price differences.
Did you know that a Big Mac menu in the center is five kroner cheaper than in Grünerløkka?
– What? No, is that it?, replies Louise
– Why do you think it is like that?
– Do not know. Maybe it’s a slightly nicer coat? I’m not that well known in Oslo, answers Tor-Martin.
– Maybe there is less access to fast food there than there is here in the centre, adds Louise.
– Here in the center of Oslo, a Big Mac menu costs NOK 107, but elsewhere in the country it costs NOK 119. What do you think about it?
– Oh, there was quite a difference! I thought it was the same price everywhere, says Louise.
Professor defends McDonald’s
Runar Døving is a professor at the department of marketing at Kristiania University College. He is not surprised by how McDonald’s sets its prices.
Døving says that companies take what they can for their products, and that if there is competition, they risk the customer moving away.
– If it’s a monopoly situation, it’s just a matter of bragging, says Døving to Nettavisen.
He adds that he does not think the situation is strange.
– I think McDonald’s gets unnecessarily thin. They have cheap products, and are the only ones to print nutritional content on the menu.
He explains the reason for cheap products with the fact that they think efficiency, and make money by selling large quantities of product for a low price.
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Disagreement between McDonald’s and the restaurants
In an email to Nettavisen, communications manager Kristina Johansen says that McDonald’s prices are determined locally in each individual restaurant.
When Nettavisen called some of the restaurants to hear about this, they said that it is McDonald’s Norway that decides the prices.
In an email to Nettavisen, Johansen explains that she thinks the responses from the restaurants are due to a misunderstanding.
– In McDonald’s, most of the restaurants are operated by their own franchisees. Some restaurants are not franchised, but operated by our own subsidiary.
In front of Nettavisen, Johansen and McDonald’s have no more to say about the matter.
– We do not want to comment anything more about pricing, as we do not want to share competitively sensitive information, such as price, says Johansen.
