Resource Partners

Maczfit grows on diet

Maczfit, the leader of the box diet market, is preparing a solid growth - from PLN 57 million turnover in 2018 to PLN 85 million in 2019. The youngest customers and Berliners are about to participate in this result.

We started preparing meals in the new plant. It allows us to produce up to 20,000 sets of meals a day, but above all, we can add more types of diets - we have space for larger teams of dieticians and production workers which we missed in the previous plant - says Maciej Lubiak, CEO of Maczfit .

If Szczecin, then Berlin

Currently, from a new factory near Warsaw, around 7,000 sets (5 meals each) are dispatched every day, while a year ago it was about 4,500. Resource Partners - a financial investor who at the end of last year took over 70 % of shares in Maczfit (30% of the president retained), announced a several-fold increase in sales within 3-5 years .

We still have a lot to gain from the domestic market. We add more diets and start with those developed for children of all ages. This is a group that has not been included in this market so far, and proper nutrition of children is important for their parents- we have therefore prepared sets with different calories, depending on the age of the child and for several months we have also tested successive flavors of meals. The trick is not to prepare a healhy meal but also tasty one especially for the little recipient - adds Maciej Lubiak.

The next new group of customers will be residents of Germany. In July, Maczfit will start shipping to Berlin.
- If you can deliver boxes to Szczecin, then Berlin is also within our reach. At the same time, we have to build the market from scratch, because even thoug ready-made, healthy dishes are widely known there, you only buy them in stores, and do not order the whole day set to home or office - says the CEO of Maczfit.

Portfolio of brands

The new shareholder of the company admitted a few months ago that he is interested in acquisitions. Maciej Lubiak approaches the matter carefully.

- In Poland we are in the forefront of the market of 3-4 player diets. As the largest one, we are rightly tipped for a consolidator. However, taking over one of the competitors just to have an additional plant and customer base does not seem to be very rational. Acquisition in order to acquire an interesting brand and having several brands in the industry in the portfolio sounds more interesting. For now, we're growing organically - says Maciej Lubiak.

With the growing business scale, Maczfit will also be able to sell not only full sets. - We are working on arranging logistics so that you can order less than 5 meals a day.

This would mean acquiring another group of clients who prefer breakfast or dinner to prepare themselves. Such deliveries will obviously increase costs, so we can offer the service only at appropriately high volumes - says the president of Maczfitu.

Ready instead of semi-finished products

The box diet market (ready-to-eat meals delivered to homes and offices in Poland) started in 2006-07. Abroad, it is more popular to sell a specific ready-made dish in the store or to buy peeled, weighed, chopped raw materials and semi-finished products from which the meal can be made. In Poland, the "boxes" were interesting for restaurants, catering companies, and entities specialized in category of products created from scratch. Lack of hard data about the market - everyone agrees that it is growing, while spending on such products can reach up to PLN1bn. The first transaction with private equity participation submitted at the end of last year, is according to experts an imortant sign that the market has already achieved satisfactory sizes and has adequate margins.