Stake Ventures

Groceries

If you’re used to large nice supermarkets like you have in most countries you are in for a surprise here. Laws limit the sizes of supermarkets and department stores, but even more important the neighborhood discount stores are now the most popular place to do grocery shopping.

Discount Supermarkets

The five chains I know of in Denmark are Netto, Fakta, Aldi, Lidl and Rema 1000.

Of these Netto and Fakta are Danish although you might have seen Netto in amongst other countries England. Rema 1000 is Norwegian (Thanks Trond). The rest are German chains. Netto and Aldi are the most common and just about every neighborhood has one. After that Aldi. Lidl and Rema 1000 are not very common in Copenhagen, but I believe they are very common in Jutland.

Aldi are by the way the owners of Trader Joes in the US.

Anyway the Danish tabloid Extra Bladet have compared prices for a bunch of different groceries as of April 2008 here:

Discount stores are great for your basic daily shopping as well as their special offers. The standard grocery assortment is quite small compared to a US supermarket. However their weekly offers “Tilbud” are what make them kind of fun. Go to each of their web sites above and view their weekly catalog containing special offers. The offers range from Oreo Cookies to cheap laptops.

Important note regarding international Credit Cards

One important note when going to the Danish discount stores. They do not accept international credit cards. You will need either cash or the Danish debit card Dankort. I’ve seen many a foreigner being turned away at the cash register for this reason.

You buy the bag and bag yourself

Other important note for at least Americans is that you have to buy your bags and bag your groceries yourself. After having been abroad for 14 years my first time in Netto ended up as a stare down between me and the woman behind the cash register. I was waiting for her to bag my groceries and she was waiting for me to do so with the bag I hadn’t bought.

Meat and where to buy it

The discount stores have a few choices that you might use, however they aren’t normally very good.

Better yet would be to check the more upscale supermarkets Føtex, Irma and SuperBrugsen. They normally have good quality meats available. You will notice their normal prices are quite expensive, however they almost always have good offers going on.

Føtex and SuperBrugsen often have a pick 3 packs of meat for 100kr deals. Irma normally have will have one or two offers on beef that is worth while. As in California TriTip steaks are great deals and are known as Cullotte or Cuvette steg.

Another option that is very popular with many foreigners but often less so with Danes are the Hallal butchers. Most areas with large muslim populations such as Vesterbro and Nørrebro in Copenhagen have good ones. They are normally best for buying mutton and veal. It’s normally good quality and cheaper than the supermarkets.

Vegetables

The discount supermarkets have the basics and are normally fairly cheap. The larger supermarkets such as Føtex have a good selection of vegetables and fruits but are often 50% or more expensive.

Again you might want to go into Vesterbro and Nørrebro for your favorite Turkish green grocer. They normally have a good collection of fruits and vegetables for good prices. Pick up some Olives or Hummus from the deli conter as well. I love these places.

Ethnic foods

As mentioned earlier Vesterbro and Nørrebro have lots of Turkish butchers and green grocers.

Vesterbro in the part closest to the central train station have several great Thai and Chinese shops. None of them are too expensive.

On Peter Hvitfeldts Straede in central Copenhagen you will find a small American grocery store next to a English shop that also carries Aussie and South African groceries.

A neat place I discovered are the Polish grocery stores. I think there is one on Nørregade close to Nørreport station. They have great cheap Polish beer, interesting soups, sausages etc.

Booze and where to buy it

Generally speaking the supermarkets have a good selection of wines at suprisingly affordable prices. Even with the current dollar rate it’s cheaper to buy good wine in Denmark than in the US. There are lots of great wines in the 30-50kr range.

The normal beer brands like Tuborg and Carlsberg are available everywhere. The discount supermarkets have their own Danish brewed beers that are pretty cheap at around 2kr. Some of them aren’t bad. They are cheap enough to try them all. If you are close to Lidl, they have great German beers available for 4-6kr.

You can often fine drinkable vodka and gin at most of the discount supermarkets for around 70kr. Look out for special offers on premium brands. In particular Føtex and Irma have occasional great offers.

Bottle deposits

Bottle deposits in Denmark has been a part of life for years. It’s 1kr for a beer bottle or can and 3kr for a large soda bottle. In Denmark there is no need to feel embarrassed when standing in line in front of the bottle deposit machine with the career winos, students and basically everyone.

Every supermarket has one of these machines. You basically fill it with your cans and bottles one at the time (bottom first). When you’re done press the button and it prints a receipt that you can exchange for cash or use to pay for more beer.

Transport

Public Transport

The public transport system is great and consists in Copenhagen of busses, trains and the metro system. All of them use the same tickets.

I recommend that you never buy a single ticket unless you of course only need a single ticket. A single 2 zone ticket costs 20kr. So it’s much better to buy a 10 clip multi ticket know as a klippekort. A standard 2 zone one costs 125kr in Denmark. You can buy these in many news stands

If you’re here for more than a week it’s almost always worthwhile getting a 1 month pass, which costs 310kr for 2 zones which allows unlimited travel for 30 days within the 2 zones that you pick. You need to bring a passport photo with you and buy these at train stations.

Cars

At nearly 200% tax buying a car is ridiculously expensive. Renting them as well. However if you’re in Denmark for less than a year there are good options. If you are a foreigner want to buy a car or bring your own with you have the option to register it using special tags known as “grænseplader”. These allow you to cut most of the import duties. I don’t know the details myself, but you should be able to ask a car dealer about it.

Similarly most large car rental agencies have special offers for non residents. You probably need to call them up to ask for it, but it will be cheaper and comes with such luxuries as unlimited milage.

Please add your own tips in the comments.

A pizza is not just a pizza

2 obvious micro fusions for Americans are the various regional pizza types that exist within the US. New York Pizza’s are large thin crust and juicy, Chicago Pizza’s are thick and very different. However these evolved I have no idea, maybe immigrants came from different parts of Italy, maybe availability of ingredients and ovens where different between Chicago and NYC 100 years ago. It could also be that some one in Chicago was a bit creative one day and it took off. However what you see are big differences in italian food just within the US borders.

What about Italian food outside the US?

Argentina had nearly as many Italian immigrants as the US. What did they make of the Pizza? On the right you’ve got a Buenos Aires Deep Pan Pizza, but they also do thin crust, white pizzas and they are all very different than US or Italian pizzas.

While the first Pizzarias in Denmark where run by Italian immigrants, nearly all of them today are run by Middle Eastern immigrants, which has created strange little micro fusions of Italian, Middle Eastern and Danish food. One of the most popular pizza toppings is Shawarma meat and another curios fusion called the Pizza sandwich has evolved, which is basically a pita the size of a Calzone and freshly baked stuffed with fresh ingredients be it Pepperoni or Shawarma or Ham.

Any way all of these micro fusions are what makes Pizza blogs like Slice fantastic reads.

But hang on a minute. Aren’t many Italian classics also products of early globalization? Pasta came from China, tomatoes from the Americas. Are the Italians eating Chinese food when they cook up spaghetti bolognese?

Is Jamaican culture taking over the world?

I used the example of Italian food before, as everyone knows about Italian food. What about cultures that we might not be so familiar with. What do you know about Jamaican Culture? Jamaica is a small country with a couple of million inhabitants, yet these cultural imperialists are taking over the world.

The imperialist Jamaican flag hanging outside a Nigerian restaurant in Tallinn, Estonia:

Very few people nowadays haven’t heard of Bob Marley. I have seen wannabe Rastas in just about every country I’ve ever visited from Europe to Argentina to the Philippines.

But Jamaican music has evolved a lot since and was even influential before Bob Marley. Ska which was the most popular sound of Jamaica in the 60s has now transmogrified into Ska Punk in the US and Argentina – completely different yet still Ska.

Jamaican Dancehall became Reggae en Español when Panamanian’s of Jamaican descent like Renato, Nando Boom and El General started doing Spanish covers of Jamaican greats like Gregory Isaacs and Barrington Levy. They then started creating their own style which took Latin America by storm about 10-15 years ago (evil Panamanian imperialists).

Now Puerto Rican DJ’s took Panamanian Reggae and mixed it with a bit of American Hip Hop and a sprinkling of Dominican Bachata to create Reggaeton, which has now led Daddy Yankey’s Gasolina to be one of the single most annoying yet recognized songs where ever you go in the world. Bastard Puerto Rican imperialists first they brought us Salsa, then Living la Vida Loca and now Gasolina. Even Jamaican dancehall tunes of the last couple of years having been spared the reggaeton influence with occassional shout outs of “Culo” and plonk of a Bachata guitar to be found.

Not even Denmark is spared Jamaican imperialism. Through the regular sunday reggae night Rub ‘A Dub at Stengade 30 in Copenhagen a bunch of great acts like Bikstok Røgsystem have created really cool Danish/Jamaican microfusions.

But wait Jamaican imperialism doesn’t stop with music. You can now find watered down “Jamaican Jerk” chicken on the menus all over the world, but what really interests me is street food like Jamaican Patties – basically spicy beef turnovers. Jamaican Patties might be unknown to you if you live outside New York City, Toronto, Miami, Jamaica or Manila?? I discovered several Jamaican Patty chains in Manila:

De Original Jamaican Pattie Shop was started twelve years ago as a direct result of collaboration between members of the prominent Ablan family of the Philippines and the equally prominent Chang/ChinYee family from Jamaica.At that time most Filipinos had no idea what a Jamaican Patty was but with determination and belief in the product De Original Jamaican Pattie Shop gradually popularised authentic annd original Jamaican Patties, using recipes and techniques from the best Pattie makers in Jamaica. [Jamaican Patties in the Philippines]

Or what about this chain in Panama:

Again evil Jamaican imperialists. Need I say more? Well I will.

Salsa, Cuba, Puerto Rico etc.

You might have noticed that I mentioned above that Salsa is from Puerto Rico. Well it’s not. Many people think it’s Cuban and they wouldn’t be entirely correct either. It actually developed in New York in the sixties and 70s as a truly Pan latin fusion of Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Panamanian and Colombian traditional music. The largest stars came from all over the Latin Caribbean region and New York – Willie Colon (NYC), Hector Lavoe (PR), Celia Cruz (Cuba), Ruben Blades (Panama), Joey Arroyo (Colombia) and many others were all important pieces in the development of this truly American fusion.

Again we see Havana Clubs, Bar Salsa and any number of variations of that in every single major city in the world. Tokyo and Helsinki are supposedly hot beds of Salsa activity. Evil Cuban Puerto Rican Dominican Panamanian Colombian American imperialists forcing salsa onto the world. Of course the original laid back informal dance of salsa has now become rigidized and formalized in a manner that fits better into Scandinavian and Japanese cultures, the exact same way competitive latin ball room dancing has little in common with their original Cuban inspirations of the 50s.

How evil Austrians scabs took our jobs and invented the Danish pastry

According to the Danish pastry check association (in Danish) the origin of Danish pastry’s came during a bakers strike in Denmark in 1850. As Danes couldn’t possibly survive without bread or cakes a flood of Austrian bakers came in to work the bakeries. They brought with them their Austrian pastry, which was also the source of the “French” croissant and started creating Pastry’s. They became a hit in Denmark and when the Danish bakers decided to go back to work they started making them as well. I’m sure Denmark has variations that aren’t in Austria, but the basic invention was Austrian.

So how come people around the world aren’t eating Austrian’s for breakfast? According to WikiPedia it was the work of a single Dane L. C. Klitteng who founded the Danish Culinary Institute in New York and tirelessly promoted it. Evil Danish Austrian Danish imperialists.

Of course the Danish pastry’s found in the US are nothing like what I would get from my local baker in Copenhagen. Of course neither is a Danés con Guayaba in Panamá or one with purple yam in Manila. They are all successful microfusions.

McDonalds forcing American food on the world

McDonalds are surely the poster child of evil imperialists forcing us all to eat the same food. Such as the traditional American DelleBurger in Denmark:

And the old American classic McRice Burger in Manila:

Of course these aren’t American but microfusions albeit commercial between the traditional Danish frikadelle (meatball) and the US hamburger as well as the rice burger, which I gather is a Japanese/American micro fusion.

Finally he reaches his point

My point of all this is that excercise in music and fast food is that yes you can buy American fast food just about everywhere nowadays but it’s often as American as a Chicago pie is Italian. This isn’t the first globalization movement that has changed tastes of the world and it won’t be the last, but this globalization doesn’t create a safe bland boring world as many people like to say.

My other point is that many of the local favorites around the world where results of chains of micro fusions. Whether we are talking about the Danish pastry in a coffee shop in Seattle, a lasagna in Bologna, Chicken Tikka Massala in the UK, Tandori in India or balut (please do not click that link) in the Philippines. These were all the result of one or more invasions, discoveries, immigrations or trading missions throughout history.

We also thankfully do get a backlash many places with both England, Denmark and the US for example seeing trends in “traditional foods”. Of course many of these traditional foods are often not entirely native either.

Every Italian and Lebanese restaurant in Panama serves traditional Ceviche and KFC servers Sancocho and Arroz con Pollo. All foods very important in the Panamanian national psyche, but of course all distant derivatives of dishes brought over from Spain some 400 years ago.

Many of the traditional Danish foods have French influences from around the turn of the century. Fish & Chips is apparently a Spanish import to Britain. Tandori in India came with the Persian conquerors 400 years ago and Chicken Tikka Massala took was invented in the UK by Indian chef’s using said “Indian” Tandori chicken as the base for a new dish unknown in India. Filipino Balut was actually a Chinese invention.

And yes there will be some things that are boring. Like I’m sure you can now find tuna tartar on menus in every single country, go figure. But hey you don’t have to actually order the tuna tartar when you can order a Shawarma Pizza instead.

So globalization will create some definite similarities, but it will not erase the differences and it will no doubt create whole new levels of differences that probably will create whole new classics in the future.

Music fads change quickly, probably about as quickly as internet fads. Food and clothes a bit more slowly, yet still fast enough that we can see large changes over a 10 year period. I’m here for the ride and I’m sure it’ll be fun and not at all boring.

I mostly agree with her comments on the difficulties faced by Danish startups. She mentioned that the largest problems were:

• Fear or inability of networking
• No entrepreneurial tradition
• Low expectations
• Lack of understanding of the term value proposition
• They are always the only people with this idea
• Irrational fear of their ideas being stolen

Many of the things she said are of course generalizations. There are definitely lots of exceptions, but I think its fair to agree with her on the majority of these points.

The inability of networking is something that is ingrained in Danes (and other nationalities as well of course). We as a nation tend to stick with our student friends all of our life and don’t like situations where we have to talk with new people. I am blessed by being part American, but growing up in Denmark makes it hard for me to go talk to new people the first time. I’m fine once introductions are made, but until then I’m shaking in my pants.

The entrepreneurial tradition thing is a sad thing. In 1988 when various business associations in Denmark needed young Danish entrepreneurs to send to various EU conferences, I was the only person they could find. Yes I knew several others, but it really was not a common thing to be an entrepreneur in the 80s in Denmark. I can see people of my generation are really scared of the idea of entrepreneurship.

However as I mentioned at the talk, I think computers, games, mobiles and the internet has had a big impact of the generations coming after mine. Dane’s in the 20s are a lot more open to the idea of setting up shop than my generation. I can only assume this trend will grow. From the Copenhagen.rb meetings I can see that there is a definite change in the mindset of people.

You also are seeing more and more creative people in Copenhagen following their dreams starting magazines, designing clothes, launching bars etc.

I think one of the biggest problems facing Danish entrepreneurs is that they get penalized if they succeed. While many things are simple there are still lots of annoying regulatory roadblocks:

• Up to 65% personal income tax
• Antiquated company registration law requires you to deposit more than $20,000 cash as share capital in a bank account before you can even get incorporated.
• Ridiculous requirement requiring you to deprecate computer equipment purchases over several years if your total purchases in a year is more than $2000. In the US I think the current figure is over $100,000. This is a real pain for small computer related businesses.
• 165% “registration fee” on cars
• If you run your business next to a job you can risk being classified a “hobby business” in which case they disallow all and any deductions

There are also a few bright points:

• Sole Proprietors and Partnerships can chose to be taxed as a corporation (kind of like an opposite s-corp or LLC), however no limited liability
• At 30% corporate income tax rates are relatively low (I think even lower than most places in the US)
• You don’t pay the %25 sales tax if you’re a business. Suddenly that Mac Book Pro costs the same as in the US.

For more on this checkout my Bootstrappers guide for Denmark.

There are loopholes around many of these. Most of which involve leaving Denmark either physically or virtually. Many prospective entrepreneurs are scared by these problems and have grand plans to start their business when they finally leave Denmark.

Legislators in Denmark have no interest in fixing any of the above problems as very few politicians in Denmark have business owners as their prime constituents.

Marianne said at the meeting that she things it’s great if Danish startups move over here to the Valley. She says that Danes abroad tend to start moving back once their kids reach school age. Then they will bring back with them what they’ve learned abroad.

I guess you could say this is what has happened both in India and Taiwan, where lots of former bay area residents returned home to start successful businesses. I hope she’s right and I think it’s healthy for anyone to go abroad for a while, but I still think you won’t see too many Danes returning to do startups until the basic regulatory infrastructure gets up to scratch.

I would really be interested in hearing comments from other Danish entrepreneurs both at home and abroad, what you think. I’m notoriously opinionated and tend to see everything through my Libertarian lenses.