A large Polish retailer enters the Romanian market: 200 stores will be opened all over the country

A large Polish retailer plans to open a network of 200 stores in Romania, where massive hiring will be done in several cities in the country.

Froo Romania, the company through which the Polish retailer Zabka will operate a chain of convenience stores locally, is looking for a Technical Manager, according to an announcement by the company’s HR manager. The position will entail duties “in the scope of the new stores and locations, to deliver the technical and operating standard according to internal regulations”, specifies the manager, quoted by economica.net.

So far, Zabka has appointed Maciej Hodowany, sales director at Żabka Poland, to the position of operations director at Froo Romania SRL. In his new role, he will be in charge of “launching a modern chain of convenience stores for Romanian customers”, being responsible for expansion, fit-out and adaptation, store openings, sales and loss prevention, as he announces on Linkedin.

The retailer also brought in Piotr Kornet from Poland for the position of Head of Private Brands and New Product Development, which indicates that the Poles will also have private brands in stores, just like the other big players on the board local. At the same time, they appointed Barbara Furmanczuk to the position of category manager. In addition, the company already has an interim human resources manager, from Romania, and has recruited Georgeta Condescu, former purchasing manager in the ready to eat and frozen Profi products segment, for the position of Purchasing Category Manager. Otherwise, most of Froo’s managers are Polish expats brought in by the retailer to run local operations.

The Zabka Group has also created a new business unit, Żabka International, which will provide operational support to the Group’s entities on foreign markets, including Romania. The division will be headed by Anna Grabowska, a Stanford School of Business graduate whom the Polish group recruited in 2016 from Tesco.

Zabka Group, established in 2021, was created with multidirectional development in mind. Over the course of more than two years, the company, initially known for its convenience stores, incorporated market entities into its structures and built new operating areas from scratch. As a result, in addition to its current sales in the convenience segment, it has built a leading position in the q-commerce and diet catering industries. At the end of 2023, the Group expanded beyond the Polish market by acquiring the majority stake in the distribution company Daniel DRIM Distributie FMCG in Romania.

Zabka Group operates more than 10,000 stores and offers customers digital solutions, catering services with door delivery and has 3 million customers daily.