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The giants are in the queue to copy Johan Bülow’s Lakrids.
Johan Bülow has never been very good at school. Her mother was a glassblower and, like her, preferred to work with her hands. Since he was little, he was always encouraged to find something to do.
Therefore, it was not so strange that he started as an entrepreneur as early as 14 years old. His first job was running a small newsstand in his hometown of Bornholm. There he sold sweets and sandwiches to the neighbors. Seven years later, after working in a luxury hotel and earning a small business degree, he founded “Licorice by Bülow”.
Now Johan Bülow (36) is the whole licorice king of Scandinavia, so popular that even the biggest candy producers are trying to copy him. In 2019, the company had a turnover of 219 million Danish crowns, around 300 million Norwegian crowns.
Discount
Johan Bülow says that he had always liked licorice before, but thought it could be much better than it was.
– It was a product that was only sold to the grocery store at a low price and quality. He did not understand why no one had tried to raise the bar and get a high-quality product at a high price, he tells Nettavisen.
Also read: Great growth of Normal in Norway
Gründern himself had no baking experience and spent 18 months coming up with the first perfect licorice, a sweet licorice muffin in powdered salt.
Then he opened his first store on Bornholm. Everything sold out in one day. The following year he started a complete factory.
It was the beginning of an adventure in which Bülow opened stores in Denmark in a few years.
Copy
The following year came the product for which Johan Bülow is now best known, liquorice balls that are coated or coated with chocolate.
– I think we satisfy a need for both gourmet liquorice and chocolate liquorice. This is something we can spread around the world, he says.
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Too fast, gourmet licorice became so popular that many would copy it. In Norway, there are now a large number of these copies on supermarket shelves, including that of the grocery giant Orkla from Stein Erik Hagen.
You can see what Johan Bülow thinks about the copies in the video above.
The prices for copies are also only a fraction of what Bülow charges for his liquorice. While copies on supermarket shelves cost only around NOK 200 per kilo, the price per kilo at Lakrids by Bülow is around NOK 700. A 295 gram box costs 200 kroner in Bülow liquorice. For the same price, you would get two kilos of goodies at a normal Norwegian grocery store.
– We offer everyone to try our product before buying, and we are honest about what it costs. It gives them the opportunity to try something new. We will not sell a product that has disappointed you. It’s a balance between what you pay for and what you get, says Johan Bülow.
Also read: Is this the most expensive liquorice in Norway?
– Have you thought about reducing the price to increase sales even more?
– We know who our customers are and we have a mission to teach people to love licorice. We serve those who want to pay more for quality. There will always be those who think it is better to buy something at half price and that it is perfectly fine, he says.
Notice the differences
The liquorice entrepreneur says the high price gives them the opportunity to always experiment.
– We could, for example, buy a chocolate for our liquorice balls that costs half the chocolate we use, but that would be a different product. Our business is very strong because consumers see the difference. Those consumers who don’t should definitely buy the cheap varieties, he says.
Lakrids by Bülow entered Norway in 2014, with a store in the basement of Steen og Strøm. They now have two other outlets of their own, at CC Vest and Sandvika Storsenter, and they are also sold by a large number of specialist associations in Norway. The Norwegian business turnover has increased from NOK 5.6 million in 2016 to NOK 36.4 million in 2019.
– We noticed very quickly that this was something that people had missed in Norway. From the beginning, people were completely crazy about the product and wanted to pay the price, although no one knew who Lakrids by Bülow was, says the Dane, who is now investing heavily to conquer Germany.
High growth
However, he says they do not plan to grow at a very high rate.
Also read: Man died after licorice overdose
-If we do this sensibly, then we have to go a bit slowly and correctly. But if we do, it could go out into the world. This can be a big deal, but we have to treat it properly and justify our price, says Johan Bülow, who just opened a store in London’s luxury Harrods shopping center. So you dream of conquering the United States.
– We have many plans and ambitions and we hope to be as big as, for example, Bang Olufsen around the world.
– In a few decades, I think it is possible, says the liquorice businessman.
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