How Søstrene Grene is taking over the UK high street — one £5 mug at a time

The UK high-street continues to struggle, with stalwarts such as Claire’s, River Island, and WH Smith announcing closures in recent months, and an average of 38 shops putting their shutters up for good, every single day.

But Danish-born homeware brand, Søstrene Grene, is bucking the trend.

Their stores are like a warm-hug: cutesy trinkets, low-lighting and cosy soft furnishings. It’s a welcoming slice of hygge among a bleak retail picture — and crucially, at wallet-friendly prices.

A chic bread basket for £3.60, a soap dispenser for £2.94, and mugs (a fan favourite) for £4.94. Nothing looks cheap, though: Søstrene Grene isn’t quite as budget as Primark or Flying Tiger, but it’s somehow giving Zara Home, without the price tag.

Founded in 1973 by Danish couple Inger Grene and Knud Cresten Vaupell Olsen, the company’s ethos is based on the personalities of a pair of fictional sisters, Anna and Clara, inspired by Inger’s aunties.

While Anna is creative, Clara is practical and organised. The idea is that they represent all that Søstrene Grene has to offer.

Starting with one store in Aarhus, Denmark’s ‘second’ city, Inger and Knud’s sons, Mikkel and Cresten, slowly took over the business from 2003, evolving it into an international brand.

Between 2024 and 2025, Søstrene Grene opened 47 new locations, mostly in the UK and Germany, and more than 100 million customers walked through their doors.

Today, it has 386 shops across 17 countries — and there’s more to come, with more stores opening across the continent. In 2025, it opened 22 new shops in the UK alone.

‘It’s a small break from hectic daily life’

Speaking to Metro, founder, Mikkel Grene, says the company is selling an ‘experience’, rather than specific products. He says more than half of their customers walk in, not knowing what they actually want to buy.

Mikkel explains: ‘It’s a small break from hectic daily life. They just want to see what we’ve come up with since the last visit, so there’s always something new coming in.

‘It’s more like a marketplace. You never really know what you might find, and some people refer to it as a small fix that they need every month or every week, so it’s the sort of feeling they get when they enter the store.’

The Ikea-style layout of the stores has been there since the very beginning, and the purpose has always been to take the customers on a ‘journey’ through the different categories, from beauty and homeware, to arts and crafts.

Mikkel says that the initial intention was to create a feeling of being in a market in Southern Europe, where the customer ‘never knows’ what they might find around the corner.

‘It’s like a treasure hunt, where you’re making your way through the store. We’re also deliberately making it quite dark and closed, so you sort of lose direction quite quickly, and you’re immersed in it. That’s something that’s really appealing to our customers, especially women,’ Mikkel explains.

The UK has had a long love affair with all-things Scandi, but Søstrene Grene say they consider themselves to be so much more than just a quintessentially Danish brand.

‘We’re tapping into a lot of different cultures,’ Mikkel says. ‘I still think that the Danish design tradition is an important part of who we are, and that strict cleanness that there is to the colours, and the aesthetics.

‘But we’re also quite whimsical, and you’ll find the whole palette here.’

When it comes to the products stocked in-store, Søstrene Grene employ a team of 10 designers.

They’ve actively rejected using digital or AI designs, in favour of a more ‘authentic and tactile expression.’

Mikkel adds: ‘We like to use natural materials, like wool and cotton instead of polyester, and we’ve always been this organic brand, all the way back to the 1970s.’

So, how do they keep prices so low?

Of course, the major selling point of Søstrene Grene is that prices are low.

Online, a candleholder costs just £6.60, while a four-pack of egg cups goes for £5.52.

There are other cute, kitsch-y things on offer, too, like tea strainers (£3.59 each), bread baskets (£2.89), and decorative ceramic mushrooms (£1.28).

When asked exactly how they keep their products wallet-friendly, a spokesperson told Metro that the brand ‘avoids expensive intermediaries’ — that’s a third-party, or the middle man between the suppliers, in order to keep ‘margins as low as possible.’

They’ve also consistently chosen not to up their prices despite an unstable economic landscape. The spokesperson said: ‘When inflation went up in 2022, and over the past couple of years, we decided to absorb most of the price increases instead of passing the bill on to our customers.

‘We decided to do that because the cost of living was on the rise, and we did not want to put any more pressure on our customers.’

And it’s a business model that’s working for them. Søstrene Grene is no doubt benefiting from ‘little treat’ culture — the ‘f*** it’ mentality, particularly within Gen Z circles, who are all too aware that they’ll likely never be able to afford a house deposit, so why not indulge in a tiny treat every once in a while?

A study from Next found Brits’ treat themselves at least once a week, with 18% buying themselves a little something up to three times a week, spending £5 on average.

What’s next?

Looking ahead, Søstrene Grene has big plans. This year, it’ll be launching in Poland and Italy with physical shops, and online in Spain.

And, by 2027, it’s aiming to have 100 on British soil, which Mikkel describes as one of the brand’s most ‘exciting markets.’ To date, though, he’s proud of every single success they’ve had – and he never takes any of it for granted.

‘We’re humble, as not a lot of retailers are seeing these numbers these days, so it’s amazing,’ he says. ‘It’s even hard for us to understand.’

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