Bulgaria’s caretaker Agriculture Minister: ‘Shop for the People’ is a loss-making enterprise

The state-owned enterprise Shop for the People, which was established in August last year with 10 million leva from the state budget, is operating at a loss and it is unclear when and whether it will ever be able to turn a profit, caretaker Agriculture Minister Ivan Hristanov told bTV on February 2026.

The state-owned enterprise was established by the then-government in August 2025 following a provision in the 2025 Budget at the insistence of Magnitsky Act-sanctioned Delyan Peevski, leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning.

Hristanov said that he was shocked by the business plan and financial reports of the state-owned chain of shops selling cheap food and non-food products, which currently only has stands in about 50 CKS locations in the Plovdiv region.

“For 2025, sales revenue is 200 000 leva, and expenses, 250 000 leva. For this year, their expectations are to reach 37 million leva in revenue, which is not clear how it will happen,” Hristanov said.

“They expect to make a profit only when they reach a turnover of 120 million leva a year,” he said.

He said that the project for state-owned cheap food shops in small settlements was strongly politically linked from the very beginning.

“The state’s job is to guarantee equal conditions for everyone, not to enter the market. No one has achieved lower prices with state intervention,” Hristanov said.

“I respect the request for a social function, but if we keep prices lower on the market with artificial intervention, but at the same time cover the loss from elsewhere, these are not lower prices, but subsidised ones,” he said.

He said that an analysis of the activities of Shop for the People is being conducted, with the emphasis on whether the project makes economic and social sense.

(Photo: Frances Magee)