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Swedes queue for an hour to buy a packet of these biscuits

The Local Sweden
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
Swedes queue for an hour to buy a packet of these biscuits
Baddare biscuits have been made for more than 30 years. Photo: Göteborg Kex

One to file under "only in Sweden" perhaps. Crowds of people descended on the small town of Kungälv, outside Gothenburg, on Friday, each queuing for well over an hour simply to buy a packet of biscuits.

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The rare 'Baddare' – or 'Whopper' – biscuit is baked only once or twice a year at the Göteborg Kex factory in the town. And it is sold in only one place: the Bräckboden shop outside the factory gates: 29 kronor ($3.5) for a pack of 10. 
 
"It's becoming a festival," Karin, who had driven from the nearby town of Stenungsund, told the Expressen newspaper. 
 
Birka, from Gothenburg, told the newspaper she was looking forward to feasting on the biscuits. 
 
"It's years since I've eaten a baddare, because we didn't live nearby before."  
 
This time around the company has baked 40,000 packets over three days.
 
 
Photo: Göteborgs Kex
 
In true Swedish fashion, the orderly queue was a stark contrast to the sort of frenzy recently seen in France, when the Intermarché supermarket offered a 70 percent discount on Nutella spread.
 
But Ulrika Sten,  the company's press chief, told The Local that the numbers seen on Friday were nonetheless unusual. 
 
"It's more people this time than any time before," she said. "It's been really crowded outside all day. It takes more than an hour to get into the shop." 
 
The prized confection begins with a chocolate filling being sandwiched between two biscuits. They are then topped with a foam flavoured with arak alcholic spirit, before being completely coated in a layer of chocolate. 
 
"It's a very labour intensive manual process when we make them," Sten explained. "There are at least ten people involved. So they're not part of what we ordninarily sell to stores."
 
Göteborg Kex is the biggest biscuit maker in Scandinavia, employing 350 people at its factory in Kungsälv, with its extremely sweet Ballerina biscuit Sweden's most popular. 
 
Sten said that the passion for Baddare was "a very local thing", drawing enthusiasts mainly from neighbouring Gothenburg. "It's a bit of nostalgia I think," she said.  
 
 
 

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