Significant Mark-Up On “Tourist Candy”

Icelandic candy, bought wholesale and put in packaging directed at tourists, is being sold at a mark-up as high as 150%.

DV noted, for just one example, that a 150g bag of the Icelandic candy Möndlur sells for 349 ISK at one Ólís gas station. The same amount of the same candy, only put in new packaging and called “Icelandic Lava Sparks”, sells for 879 ISK.

Ísland Treasures, the company behind the tourist-directed candy, buys the Icelandic candy wholesale and then re-packages it for tourists. The mark-up, though, may have more to do with the stores that sell them than Ísland Treasures. Pauline McCarthy, the managing director of Ísland Treasures, said the Icelandic Lava Sparks are sold to stores at 420 ISK.

“The candy sells very well and tourists love it,” Pauline told reporters. “I’m not making a lot of money off of this. I’m trying to provide tourists with a service that they wouldn’t get elsewhere. Tourists want to buy inexpensive gifts. A tourist who has five grandkids doesn’t have the money to buy five lopapeysur, but they have the money to buy five bags of candy under 1,000 ISK.”