⚠ Efficient Scale Assumes the Entrant Is RationalModerate threat
Dino Polska (DNP) — threat to the moat
The argument holds against anyone building a shop to make money from the shop. Not everyone is.
The efficient-scale argument holds only against a competitor doing the same arithmetic.
It says a second 400-square-metre grocer in a small Polish town would not earn its cost of capital, and therefore will not be built. That is true of anyone building a shop to make money from the shop. It is not true of a chain building for share, for a distribution footprint, or because a format needs national coverage to justify its advertising.
Zabka's 1 394 openings in 2025 are the live example. The format is different — convenience, smaller, higher priced — but a Zabka in the same town takes the top-up trips that used to end at Dino, and it was not built on the basis that the town needed a second full grocer.
Dino's own defence is its price position and its fresh counter, supplied from the meat plant it owns1 — a served counter2 in a 400-square-metre box is something a convenience format has no way to answer, because the waste economics only work at Dino's basket size.
Watch like-for-like in the quarters after a competitor opens nearby — which is precisely what the current numbers may already be showing. Like-for-like fell to 0,3% in the second quarter of 20263, and Dino has not attributed that to competitive openings. Nor has it ruled them out.
- ReportedDino's own defence is its price position and its fresh counter, supplied from the meat plant it owns — a served counter in a 400-square-metre box is something a convenience format has no way to answer, because the waste economics only work...Dino Polska Management Board's Activity Report for 2025 - Section 3,2, description of the Group (Agro-Rydzyna, the wholly-owned meat processing plant at Kloda supplying the fresh counters, private label at 6,6% of network sales excluding its output, the eZebra internet business, and the direct sourcing arrangements with producers) — FY2025 · publ. March 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedDino's own defence is its price position and its fresh counter, supplied from the meat plant it owns — a served counter in a 400-square-metre box is something a convenience format has no way to answer, because the waste economics only work...Dino Polska Management Board's Activity Report for 2025 - Section 3,2, description of the Group (Agro-Rydzyna, the wholly-owned meat processing plant at Kloda supplying the fresh counters, private label at 6,6% of network sales excluding its output, the eZebra internet business, and the direct sourcing arrangements with producers) — FY2025 · publ. March 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedLike-for-like fell to 0,3% in the second quarter of 2026, and Dino has not attributed that to competitive openings.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 ↗