Food Retailing insights in Poland 2024
Leading retail chains in Poland from 2021 to 2023, by revenues (billion PLN)
The value of the food sector in Poland should reach ca €70bln in 2024 with a CAGR growth forecast of 5.95% per annum until 2029.
Food inflation slowed down over the year to around 3.7% from highs of 11.4% in 2003 and 14.4% in 2022.
Although real wage growth reached the highest level during 2024, Poles did not allocate additional funds to consumption but focused on rebuilding savings depleted by previous price increases.
With greater pressure on price and promotion, discounters’ share of grocery sales is continuously rising. By 2030, it is forecast to exceed 40% of all grocery sales. According to NIQ (household panel), in 2023 discounters already had 37% and local grocery stores 31% market share; with supermarkets trailing at 14%; drugstore chains, kiosks and petrol stations combined at 12%; and hypermarkets with only 7% share.
On-line food retailing grew exponentially during Covid but then scaled back to less than 1% share of the market. This is forecast to triple, reaching nearly 3% in 2027.
Consumers, especially Generation Z (and increasingly Generation Alpha) expect solutions that ensure speed and convenience of shopping. Therefore, convenience stores and the online sales channel are gaining in importance.
There has been a dynamic development of non-food discounters, such as Pepco, Action or Dealz in recent years. Although their food offer focuses mainly on impulse products, such as sweets, snacks or beverages (including those often unavailable in Poland), during 2024 the impulse category generated over €235mln in sales for these retailers.
Fastest-growing Retail chains
• Biedronka, owned by Portuguese Jerónimo Martins, is a dominant grocery store with a revenue in 2023 of €20 billion and approximately 3,600 stores across the country 2023. Growth plans include c.150 new store openings per year, future expansion into Slovakia and investments in green energy and ESG solutions.
• Lidl, a discounter with around 900 stores and an €8 billion revenue, has the second highest share of revenue in the grocery sector and opens approximately 50 stores per year.
• Polish chain Dino has grown rapidly over a three-year period with 2,438 stores nationwide at the end of Q1 2024 and a further 250 openings planned during 2024/25. The company has four logistics centres under construction, adding to the eight already in operation.
• Żabka has the largest number of stores, with over 11,000 units operating in Poland. Being a convenience chain, their stores are much smaller than other retailers, with a minimum unit size of 45 sqm. The network is developing through franchising (over 9,000 franchisees), with approximately 50 new stores opened each month. Żabka operates one of the largest autonomous store networks across Europe, Żabka Nano, which uses a camera system and technology based on AI to eliminate both cash registers and staff in stores. The chain is expanding abroad, with first stores already open in Romania.
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