How the Ukrainian food delivery service Foodex24 was launched in Poland

On July 3, 2021, the Ukrainian Foodex24 food delivery service has been launched in Bydgoszcz, Poland. According to the corporate plans, there will be a brick-and-mortar store opening in September in addition to a dark store. The total investment is $800,000. AIN.UA had a conversation with the founder of Foodex24, Vladyslav Savchenko, about how Foodex24 was launched in Poland, investing, and the hybrid format of the store.

How they started

As Foodex24 started in Kyiv in Spring 2020, nobody thought about expanding the business abroad, Savchenko remembers. But after some discussions about the online supermarket development, the company management decided to open a foreign branch.

“We expected that it would work according to a clear plan. But in fact, there are a lot of options for online supermarket development, and all of them are very interesting,” Vladyslav Savchenko noted.

The launch of Foodex24 in Bydgoszcz was initiated by partners of the service. After assessing the local market, the team decided to make a test run in Bydgoszcz. For that purpose, they have used a local marketplace.

Unlike Foodex24 in Ukraine, the Polish project has not only a dark store, but also an offline store. According to the company, this hybrid model allows the project to be self-sufficient from the moment the offline store was launched.

How Foodex24 was launched in Poland

The company already invested $800,000 in the Polish startup. To make it work perfectly, Foodex24 redirected their resources for adjusting the workflows. To start in Poland, the company needed to upgrade its platform significantly.

“Scaling the business in a foreign market is connected with several technical and legal nuances. For example, we needed to adapt our system to many European automation systems.”

The dark store in Bydgoszcz is located at 450 sq. m. The physical supermarket is a bit smaller and covers only 170 sq. m. It will open between the 15th and 20th of September 2021. The facility is OK for both a warehouse and a usual grocery store.

Numbers

• After 2,5 months after the start, the average bill of Foodex24 is close to those in the capital of Ukraine — 45 EUR.

“Taking into account the population of Bydgoszcz, it is comparable with Vinnytsia in Ukraine where we recently (in July 2021) also launched our service. But the numbers there are much lower — 500 UAH (16 EUR),” Vladyslav Savchenko added.

• At the moment, the Polish startup offers 1,500 articles. The company aims to reach 2,000.
• As of September 2021, the Polish online grocer has over 4,000 unique customers.

“It is a good number, and it will continue to grow. For example, a year ago after we started the online food delivery service in Kyiv, 25,000 customers ordered at least one delivery.”

Plans of Foodex24

After the start in Bydgoszcz, the team acknowledges that “they could scale the business easily and quickly in any other Polish city, or maybe in any other EU member state.”

“The trade is focused on e-commerce for a very long time, and the pandemics only empowered this trend. People who enjoyed the quality of an online service once are gladly willing to purchase different goods and groceries online.”

We recall that the online supermarket Foodex24 has recently acquired the grocery delivery service Fresh Food for $300,000. As a result of the acquisition, Foodex24 will take over Fresh Food’s customer base, equipment, products, and team. The merged companies will operate under a new brand, Goodex. After the acquisition of Fresh Food, the company plans an expansion — increasing the number of deliveries and launching the network in Odesa, Lviv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro.