Trust in grocery store chains starting falling in last year's trust barometer conducted by Medieakademin. This year’s survey is not more positive.

The biggest failure of trust is for Ica.

– I think it’s because Ica is market-leading. They are the ones to bear the brunt of high prices and the criticism that has been voiced, says Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, member of Medieakademin and professor at the Department of Political Science at University of Gothenburg.

"Associated with greed"

In this year's survey the trust in Ica fell by eleven percentage points which is an equally large fall as last year. Now there are only 38 per cent who state that they have great or fairly great trust in the grocery store chain. Two years ago the figure was 6 per cent.

– There is a PR problem. They have been associated with greed, that they extract too much profit.

Despite the big fall the trust in Ica is still somewhat greater than in the competitor Coop which has a trust level of 37 per cent. This year's decrease for Coop was two percentage points.

Systembolaget and Ikea keep their first and second place positions as the companies that have the highest levels of trust among swedes.

Heavy decrease

The trust in SJ and the Swedish Transport Administration is also falling rapidly in Medieakademin’s survey. They fall back ten and nine percentage points respectively compared to last year.

Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson says that when infrastructure does not work as well as people expect, that becomes visible in the level of trust.

– It's got a lot to do with delayed and cancelled trains. In the case of the Swedish Transport Administration there have been several well-known events, not just the landslide on E6 but also, for example, people snowed in on E22 in Skåne.

Two institutions that go up in this year’s survey is the Swedish Police and Church of Sweden. The trust in them increased by 5 and 3 percentage points respectively.