Sales
€23,571 M
(+9.6%)
# Stores
3,730
LFL
-0.3%
EBITDA
€1,814 M
(-1.3%)
CAPEX
€418 M
Highlights of the Year
- Opening of 186 stores and refurbishment of 280 locations
- Surpassed 1,300 stores offering service counters of meat & delicatessen products
- Around 45% of stores have photovoltaic panels
- More than 3,200 stores with self-checkouts
Message from the Managing Director
We began 2024, envisioning that we would be operating in an increasingly competitive market in view of the expected food deflation and high-cost inflation.
Our priority was to remain the first choice of Polish consumers, protecting the significant customer base that we have built year after year.
Faced with a cautious, price-sensitive and promotion-oriented consumer, we have honoured our brand promise and offered the best prices on the market. Therefore, we have maintained price leadership at the heart of our strategic priorities as well as the recognition of our consumers who continue to see us, deservedly, as the leader in this attribute.
Securing this preference was only possible because, in addition to offering the best savings opportunities, we also continued to increase our proximity to Polish families with 186 new locations. We also raised the quality of the shopping experience with the refurbishment of 280 stores, providing more than 3,200 locations with self-checkouts and more than 1,300 meat & deli counters operating in our store network by the end of 2024.
Although we had an extremely difficult-to-beat record following consecutive years of above-market performance, our teams worked tirelessly and delivered volume growth and increased market share. I would like to acknowledge and thank everyone for their excellent work, which greatly strengthens our brand.
The year 2025 begins with the challenge of operating with low food inflation in a cautious consumer environment.
We will maintain an unwavering consumer-centric focus and continue to implement our expansion plan and work on key productivity improvement projects to ensure the continuity of our profitable growth trajectory.
Luís Araújo
CEO Biedronka
More information, particularly about our sustainability initiatives, is provided under chapter “Sustainability” in this Report.
Performance
In Poland, despite the increases in wages and in household disposable income, the consumer remained cautious, extremely sensitive to prices and heavily promotions driven. This behaviour led the food retail market to continue to lose volumes and intensified market competition throughout the year.
Against this challenging backdrop, Biedronka consistently offered competitive prices and extra savings opportunities for Polish families. Our main banner leveraged its commercial dynamic and increased price investment having operated with basket deflation. Biedronka’s deep understanding of consumers and agile response to their needs allowed it to strengthen its customer base, post strong volume growth, and outperform the market, gaining market share.
Food inflation in the country stood at 3.3% in the year (15.1% in 2023). After declining until March, food inflation rose in April with the reintroduction of VAT on basic food products and continued going up until the year end.
In local currency, sales grew 4.1%, with a negative LFL of 0.3%. In euros, sales totalled 23.6 billion, up 9.6% on the previous year.
Net Sales
(€ Million)
Biedronka entered 2024 with the determination to keep offering Polish consumers the lowest prices every day. As such, it executed the campaign “Biedronka takes care of its customers’ wallets like no other”, reducing the prices of more than 400 popular products. It also decided to keep unchanged more than 4,000 regular prices, despite the return of VAT on basic food products in April.
The banner continued to leverage its customer loyalty programmes and launched a back-to-school campaign staging 17 heroes entitled “Gang Produkciaków” (Gang of Products). The 9th edition of such action created a warm and child-friendly image of the stores. As in previous years, customers received stickers for purchases, which could be exchanged for mascots or books.
To reach younger audiences, Biedronka is now also featured in the Roblox simulator with some minigames focused on “Gang Produkciaków”. These games allow players to play the role of both employees and customers of Biedronka stores. In the virtual store, players can shop, clean stores, assist customers, scan products at the cash register, restock shelves, handle deliveries or even bake bread. The game was promoted on Biedronka’s social media pages, in collaboration with influencers, on the Company website, and on the Roblox platform.
Following the energy transformation of its store network, the Company signed an agreement with EDP Energia Polska to install photovoltaic panels at nine distribution centres more. By the end of the year the Company already had around 45% of stores and one distribution centre powered by green energy.
Keeping its focus on operational efficiency and on shopping experience, Biedronka introduced self-checkouts in its stores, closing 2024 with more than 3,200 of its network covered with these equipments.
In what concerns Biedronka’s online activities, Biek ended the year with 23 micro-fulfilment centres exclusively dedicated to the ultra-fast delivery service and the non-food online business and the partnership with Glovo recorded strong sales growth compared to the previous year.
In the second half of 2024 Biedronka started the ambitious roll out of the electronic price tag project, which enables swifter updates in prices (performed centrally), substantially reducing the possibility of errors, while at the same time increasing efficiency. At the end of the year the Company had already this feature available in 1,207 stores.
Biedronka continued to invest in the digital front and developed a new version of its mobile app, now more user-friendly and more convenient. This app has already surpassed 13 million users.
Also 2024 brought the opportunity to buy Biedronka non-food products through the zakupy.biedronka.pl website, where the Company offers the option of scheduling home delivery within a four-day period.
To increase the attractiveness and assortment of meat & delicatessen products, Biedronka continued to invest in assisted service counters for these categories, ending the year with more than 1,300 stores offering this possibility.
Executing its capex programme, Biedronka opened 186 stores (161 net additions), of which around 50% with a small-format, and refurbished 280 locations, investing 418 million euros in the year.
EBITDA fell 1.3% (-6.3% in local currency), impacted by price investments and by the decision to significantly increase the wages of the operational teams. As anticipated, these actions, together with the operational deleveraging caused by basket deflation, pressured the EBITDA margin, which stood at 7.7% (8.5% in 2023).
Awards and recognitions of note
Ranked 2nd on the Rzeczpospolita newspaper list of the 2,000 biggest Polish companies.
Golden Laurel of Super Business, awarded by Super Express newspaper to companies supporting the Polish economy.
Friendly Workplace 2024 awarded by MarkaPracodawcy.pl for the Company’s modern approach to HR policies and employee development.
Retail Champion for the best loyalty programme (selected by consumers), and Retail Champion for the discount chain of the year (selected by suppliers).