I’m really not making this up. The KKK-Supermarket is a part of a large chain of supermarkets and grocery stores operated by Kesko Oyj, the second largest retail chain in Finland. There are some 150 of them around the country.
Also a part of the same chain are City-Market (KKKK), K-Market (KK), and K-Extra (K), in order from hypermarket to your neighbourhood grocery store.
The retail chain used to advertise these different sized markets by referring to the number of K’s in the name, indicating the size of the particular store.
The official logo of the supermarket has dropped the two extra K’s, but the signs on most such stores still retain the unfortunate KKK logo. (Maybe someone told them what “KKK” is an acronym for…) The extra K’s have also been dropped from the other stores’ logos.
Disclaimer: The photo, the sign, or the corporation have nothing to do with the Klu Klux Clan. Someone just didn’t think it through when they came up with the logo, I guess. I’m not in any way associated with the company, although as a temp I have gone through the cashiers training at a K-Supermarket (never did any actual shifts, though).
If you have a story relating to this post, from either side of the counter, let’s hear it!
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July 19, 2008 at 1:32 am |
Oh my god!
Take a look at this sketch I made for what I thought was purely a fictional store:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=nQwZXwQXvM4&feature=email
October 27, 2008 at 2:07 pm |
You think that’s bad? My brother was transferred to Finland for two years. Now he’s back in America and his five-year old daughter keeps asking, “Are we going to the KKK now?”
November 5, 2008 at 7:47 pm |
“Unfortunate?”
“Didn’t think it through?”
Why would anyone in Finland (btw, that’s a different country from the USA) be somehow obligated to avoid a name just because of a connotation the name has in the USA (again Finland is itself a country; it is not part of the USA)?
That aside, Finland IS in fact a very racist place (unfortunately). But that is not in any way related to the name of this supermarket chain.
Dispite Finland being a very racist place, if you ask the average Finn about the white seperatist group, the KKK, he probably wouldn’t know what you are talking about. But that’s not to say he wouldn’t join if he did know ;-)