COPENHAGEN: Anger in Denmark over the dispute with the United States concerning Greenland is spilling into supermarket aisles, with some consumers choosing to boycott US-made products.
Goods from the US are increasingly being left off shopping lists and new smartphone apps are allowing shoppers to scan food items to check their origin.
One such app, UdenUSA (Without USA), was developed by 21-year-old Dane Jonas Pipper and his friend Malthe Hensberg. The idea took shape last year, when US President Donald Trump first seriously threatened to take control of the largely autonomous Arctic territory of Greenland.
A wave of protest in Denmark at the time led to the creation of a Facebook group dedicated to boycotting goods from the United States. The group now has more than 100,000 members in a country of around 6 million people.
Pipper told dpa that many consumers were keen to stop buying food from the US but often found it difficult to identify the origin of products in supermarkets. The app aims to address that by flagging the country of source and suggesting alternatives from European producers.
On Wednesday, UdenUSA ranked first among free apps in Denmark's App Store.
Similar initiatives emerged last year as some Danes sought to express opposition to US trade policies. Some supermarket chains marked goods from European producers with a star on the price label to make them easier to identify.
However, the overall impact of the boycott remains uncertain. Denmark's economy is relatively small and only a limited number of food products are imported directly from the US.
Even if a significant number of consumers avoid US goods, this is unlikely to result in meaningful economic or political consequences, said Sascha Raithel, a marketing professor at Free University of Berlin. – dpa
