Insight partner Dan Munford visits Warsaw with PKN Orlen, Statoil and Tesco Poland to look at convenience developments in Poland.
For convenience suppliers looking ahead to new opportunities in the ‘new Europe’, Poland has to be high up the list.
Poland has one of the fastest growing economies in Central Europe, a population of almost 40m and, until recently, an annual growth rate of 5.4%. This translates to some exciting and impressive convenience retail development.
Britain has close historical ties with Poland. It entered WW2 in response to the invasion of Poland and Polish fighter pilots fought heroically in the Battle of Britain. Less well known is the fact many British and American bomber crews gave their lives in an effort to re-supply the Polish underground army during the Warsaw uprising in 1944.
Today, demographically speaking, these ties are even stronger. Polish workers have become a familiar sight in UK distribution centres and convenience stores in recent years and have filled gaps in the UK retail labour force. To their surprise, retailers have also discovered that Polish bread lines can become best sellers.
After speaking at a convenience conference in Warsaw last year, I decided to go back and have a better look at the market. I spent three fascinating days in the company of PKN Orlen, Statoil and Tesco Poland, along with an international supplier interested in evaluating the market.
I was impressed with how developed the forecourt sector is in Poland. It is rapidly becoming increasingly competitive as Polish giant PKN Orlen battles with BP, Statoil, Lukoil, LOTOS, Neste, Shell and Tesco. The standard of forecourt formats is high, as the photo slideshow illustrates.
PKN Orlen has recently developed a world class new forecourt format featuring an upmarket shop called Café Bistro. It offers a high quality range of coffee, pastries, hot dogs and food-to-go and a well merchandised confectionery, soft drinks, alcohol (vodka was actually invented in Poland I was informed) and traditional car care range.
 |
|
Bliska: value format |
I was impressed by its Bliska value format, which manages to pack a lot of product into a small space, including a limited but successful hot dog offer.
Forecourts in Poland, as in Scandinavia and the US, are a hot dog lover’s paradise. Are we missing a trick in the UK with this simple product offer?
BP Connect operates an impressive operation in Poland and Connect appears to be perfectly suited to the level of Polish market development. The coffee market is still immature but has lots of potential.
As with BP’s development of Wild Bean in the South African market, it is all about timing. All the BP sites I visited were well merchandised and staffed.
 |
|
BP/Carrefour JV |
I was also interested to see a BP site with a wider range of convenience food supplied through a JV agreement with Carrefour. Like Tesco,
Carrefour is now a major player in the Polish hypermarket sector.
Statoil is one of the key players in Scandinavia and I am familiar with its stores from trips to Norway with my colleague, Fidel Gonzalez. It is clear it takes the Polish market seriously, as its sites were well developed, impressive and pristine.
 |
|
Statoil: impressive food offer |
Its ‘Made to Go’ fresh sandwich offer was especially well packaged and merchandised, as was its bake-off fresh bread range.
Lukoil, in contrast, is something of an enigma. I visited a number of its Warsaw sites, which are based on the old Conoco estate with some sizeable but rather tired looking shops. It is the new kid on the block in Poland and appears to adopt a low price fuel and minimal store investment approach. The strategy is increasing its fuel market share, however, if the industry figures I heard are accurate.
 |
| Lukoil: focus on low price fuel |
Lukoil is definitely one to watch and has enormous potential on the shop side of its operation.
My Polish tour included a visit to a 24-hour Tesco site, which featured a kiosk operation to maximise throughput.
Statoil also has similar style sites, as do local operators like Neste, which runs a completely self-serviced operation with the shop premises leased out to independents.
Delivering huge fuel volumes via 24-hour sites, speed of service, minimal shop investment and low fuel prices is a real feature of the Polish market.
It looks poised to drive future development too.
My thanks to Statoil, Orlen and Tesco Poland for their tremendous hospitality.
Dan Munford, partner, Insight Research
NACS relationship partner for Europe