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POVERTY

Aussie in 15 kronor Sweden food challenge

Australian beach-volleyballer and current Stockholm resident Johannah Rohkämper plans to survive in the Swedish capital on 15 kronor ($2.20) a day to raise awareness about global poverty.

Aussie in 15 kronor Sweden food challenge

With the “Live Below the Line” poverty challenge beginning on Monday, Rohkämper has signed up from Sweden and plans to raise money for charity by living off just 15 kronor a day – but with soaring food costs in Stockholm, she admits it might not be easy.

The campaign, which began in 2010 in Australia, works by raising funds and awareness for worldwide extreme poverty, something organizers write affects 1.4 billion people each day. The money raised will help fund educational projects that tackle extreme poverty at its source.

“This is an insight into what other people go through, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s the easiest way to get a feel for the hardships people go through, as everyone can relate to food,” Rohkämper told The Local.

“Basically I want to help raise awareness for this charity, because I know not many Swedes have heard of it, and it would be fantastic if more people can donate, or even join up. It’s only for five days!”

According to the official website, the World Bank defined the extreme poverty line as living on less than $1.25 per day, something the organization equated to 2 Australian dollars, which Rohkämper rounded to 15 kronor.

Even though the charity does not yet exist in Sweden, the 26-year-old Aussie plans to help the cause by raising the issue with Swedes too.

This year, there are official campaigns in the US, the UK, New Zealand… and now, unofficially, Sweden.

Rohkämper came to Sweden in July last year following her Swedish boyfriend, and spent the majority of her time working as a volleyball coach and instructor in Umeå, northern Sweden.

Having participated in the challenge last year in Sydney, she was keen to investigate the possibility of living in Sweden off just 15 kronor.

Now in Stockholm, Rohkämper has already been carefully eyeing up prices in her local grocery store, and is currently debating whether to do the shopping each day, or to do a “big shop” and spend the weekly 75 kronor budget at once.

“It’ll be tough, I’m thinking of filling myself up with whole meal pasta for my carbohydrates and soya beans for protein. And eggs too, but not free-range,” she told The Local.

“The rules say that you can’t just accept free food either, so it’ll be tricky, especially because I’ll be training for my volleyball and will probably get pretty hungry,”

Having spent almost a year in Sweden now, there are already a few Swedish favourites that will be missed during the week.

“I’m going to miss the chocolate and the Swedish candy – especially the Kex chocolate bars,” she said.

The challenge is held between the 7th and 11th of May, and money can be donated through the official site (see link below).

At the time of writing, donations so far total AUD$687,500 in Australia, 138,000 pounds in England, and $45,000 in the US.

Oliver Gee

Follow Oliver on Twitter here

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FOOD AND DRINK

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

Should you tip in Sweden? Habits are changing fast thanks to new technology and a hard-pressed restaurant trade, writes James Savage.

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

The Local’s guide to tipping in Sweden is clear: tip for good service if you want to, but don’t feel the pressure: where servers in the US, for instance, rely on tips to live, waiters in Sweden have collectively bargained salaries with long vacations and generous benefits. 

But there are signs that this is changing, and the change is being accelerated by card machines. Now, many machines offer three preset gratuity percentages, usually starting with five percent and going up to fifteen or twenty. Previously they just asked the customer to fill in the total amount they wanted to pay.

This subtle change to a user interface sends a not-so-subtle message to customers: that tipping is expected and that most people are probably doing it. The button for not tipping is either a large-lettered ‘No Tip’ or a more subtle ‘Fortsätt’ or ‘Continue’ (it turns out you can continue without selecting a tip amount, but it’s not immediately clear to the user). 

I’ll confess, when I was first presented with this I was mildly irked: I usually tip if I’ve had table service, but waiting staff are treated as professionals and paid properly, guaranteed by deals with unions; menu prices are correspondingly high. The tip was a genuine token of appreciation.

But when I tweeted something to this effect (a tweet that went strangely viral), the responses I got made me think. Many people pointed out that the restaurant trade in Sweden is under enormous pressure, with rising costs, the after-effects of Covid and difficulties recruiting. And as Sweden has become more cosmopolitain, adding ten percent to the bill comes naturally to many.

Boulebar, a restaurant and bar chain with branches around Sweden and Denmark, had a longstanding policy of not accepting tips at all, reasoning that they were outdated and put diners in an uncomfortable position. But in 2021 CEO Henrik Kruse decided to change tack:

“It was a purely financial decision. We were under pressure due to Covid, and we had to keep wages down, so bringing back tips was the solution,” he said, adding that he has a collective agreement and staff also get a union bargained salary, before tips.

Yet for Kruse the new machines, with their pre-set tipping percentages, take things too far:

“We don’t use it, because it makes it even clearer that you’re asking for money. The guest should feel free not to tip. It’s more important for us that the guest feels free to tell people they’re satisfied.”

But for those restaurants that have adopted the new interfaces, the effect has been dramatic. Card processing company Kassacentralen, which was one of the first to launch this feature in Sweden, told Svenska Dagbladet this week that the feature had led to tips for the average establishment doubling, with some places seeing them rise six-fold.

Even unions are relaxed about tipping these days, perhaps understanding that they’re a significant extra income for their members. Union representatives have often in the past spoken out against tipping, arguing that the practice is demeaning to staff and that tips were spread unevenly, with staff in cafés or fast food joints getting nothing at all. But when I called the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Union (HRF), a spokesman said that the union had no view on the practice, and it was a matter for staff, business owners and customers to decide.

So is tipping now expected in Sweden? The old advice probably still stands; waiters are still not as reliant on tips as staff in many other countries, so a lavish tip is not necessary. But as Swedes start to tip more generously, you might stick out if you leave nothing at all.

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