Zabka: Taking the Trip Rather Than the ShopThin moat
Dino Polska (DNP) — moat facet
Zabka does not want Dino's weekly basket. It wants the top-up visit, and that is what transaction counts are made of.
Zabka opened a record 1 394 stores in 2025 — four times Dino's 3451 — in a format that is not a grocery shop at all.
Zabka is convenience: small, frequent, higher-priced, and sited for the walk rather than the drive. It does not attempt the weekly basket that Dino's 400 square metres2 are designed around, and its prices would make it an expensive way to do one.
The overlap is real nonetheless, and it sits precisely where Dino's numbers have weakened. The trips Zabka takes are the small ones — the forgotten item, the evening top-up — which used to end at the nearest Dino because there was nowhere else. Removing those visits does not reduce Dino's revenue much, but it reduces its transaction count, and transaction count is what like-for-like measures alongside basket size. Dino's like-for-like fell to 0,3% in the second quarter of 20263.
Dino has not attributed that softness to Zabka, citing deflation and price sensitivity instead. Both can be true.
What Zabka cannot take is the part of the basket Dino is built around. Fresh food is 41% of Dino's sales and reaches every store daily4; a convenience box of a few hundred square metres carries a fraction of that range and none of the served counter. The trips at risk are the small ones, which is why the damage would appear in transaction count long before it appeared in revenue.
The measure is transactions per store rather than sales. A format losing the small trip shows it there first, and Dino does not disclose the split — which is the disclosure worth pressing for.
A record 1 394 openings in 2025, four times Dino's, in exactly the towns Dino serves — taking the top-up trip rather than the weekly basket.
A different format taking a different journey, and the journey it takes is the top-up trip that used to end at Dino. It would show in transactions per store before it showed in revenue, and Dino does not disclose that split.
Source: Polish grocery market coverage, 2026 ↗- Third-party estimateZabka opened a record 1 394 stores in 2025 — four times Dino's 345 — in a format that is not a grocery shop at all.Polish grocery market coverage, 2026 - Biedronka at roughly a quarter of the market and approaching 4 000 stores, Lidl's thousandth Polish store opened 23 July 2026, Zabka's record 1 394 openings in 2025, and discounters at roughly 39% of grocery spending — 2026 · publ. 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedIt does not attempt the weekly basket that Dino's 400 square metres are designed around, and its prices would make it an expensive way to do one.Dino Polska Management Board's Activity Report for 2025 - Section 3,1, business profile (the standardised 400 m2 store format carrying roughly 5 000 stock keeping units, fresh food at 41% of sales delivered daily, the small-town and edge-of-town siting, the twelve distribution centres, and the ownership of most store real estate) — FY2025 · publ. March 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedDino's like-for-like fell to 0,3% in the second quarter of 2026.Dino Polska Management Board's Activity Report for 2025 - Section 4,1-4,3, results of operations (sales revenue of 33 634,2m złoty up 14,9%, gross profit and the 23,5% gross margin, the cost lines including employee benefits up 21,2% and depreciation up 23,4%, EBITDA, and like-for-like growth of 4,4%) — FY2025 · publ. March 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedFresh food is 41% of Dino's sales and reaches every store daily; a convenience box of a few hundred square metres carries a fraction of that range and none of the served counter.Dino Polska Management Board's Activity Report for 2025 - Section 3,1, business profile (the standardised 400 m2 store format carrying roughly 5 000 stock keeping units, fresh food at 41% of sales delivered daily, the small-town and edge-of-town siting, the twelve distribution centres, and the ownership of most store real estate) — FY2025 · publ. March 2026 · source ↗