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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
What was once Poland’s biggest vegan restaurant chain, Krowarzywa, has announced that it will close the last of its outlets due to financial difficulties. At its peak in 2022, the firm operated 22 burger joints across the country, becoming a pioneer in a thriving Polish plant-based food scene.
Speaking to newspaper Puls Biznesu, Krowarzywa’s co-founder Krzysztof Bożek said that their only remaining restaurant, on Chmielna Street in Warsaw, would shut down by the end of this month. Its outlet in Kraków, Poland’s second-largest city, closed in January.
Krowarzywa – whose name is a play on words combining the Polish words for “living”, “cow” and “vegetables” – launched in Warsaw in 2013, quickly becoming a popular destination.
Further outlets soon opened around the capital and then in nine other Polish cities. In 2018, Krowarzywa was named Warsaw’s fast-food joint of the year, beating out carnivorous competitors in a public vote run by the city.
The chain was part of a growing Polish trend for plant-based food that in 2019 saw Warsaw named the sixth most vegan-friendly city in the world. In 2020, sales of plant-based alternatives to meat doubled in Poland.
Sales of plant-based alternatives to meat products doubled in Poland last year, continuing a growing trend in a country that has become one of Europe's vegan hotspots https://t.co/R2XCjRuVjN
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 19, 2021
However, the upheaval of the pandemic, war in neighbouring Ukraine, and resultant inflation – which reached a peak of 18.4% in 2023 – has seen Poland’s restaurant sector suffer.
“There are fewer vegan restaurants appearing now than before the coronavirus pandemic,” Bożek told Puls Biznesu. “The situation in the restaurant industry is difficult.”
“Costs have gone up: products, energy, rent, salaries,” he added. “In addition, the number of customers has dropped significantly. Last year, [our] sales decreased by half.”
Poland recorded the third-highest inflation rate in the EU last month.
Whereas inflation has slowed across the bloc as a whole, in Poland it has remained high after the government partially unfroze energy prices in July.
For more, see our full report: https://t.co/JrXgUkAbHn pic.twitter.com/RLyXaba6Qt
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) September 18, 2024
Bożek said that it is possible that “interest in plant-based cuisine has decreased”. However, he also suggested that Krowarzywa may “have become a victim of our own success” by spawning many rival vegan restaurants and products.
He added that, while Krowarzywa is “ending operations in our current form”, he hopes that “in a better economic situation, we may return”. He also said that “if there is someone who would like to take over the brand and give it a new form, we are open”.
As well as its success, Krowarzywa was also hit by controversy in 2016 when the firm fired members of its staff who had formed a union and demanded better employment conditions.
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Krowaryzwa (promotional materials)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
