Barbora, the largest online grocery and everyday goods store in the Baltic States, has a new manager. Andrius Jurgelevičius, who has held the position of the Head of Commerce until now, will replace Andrius Mikalauskas, who headed the company since 2019. A. Mikalauskas was appointed to manage and develop Barbora in Poland, which started operating in the new market a month ago.

A. Jurgelevičius has headed Barbora’s commerce for the last 6 years, and has worked in the company since its establishment. He was appointed Acting Director of Barbora in Poland during the company’s development in the country.

“We are a forward-looking company with ambitions to further strengthen our positions and to also develop online trade standards in our home markets. We have constantly been searching for innovative solutions that improve customer shopping experience, therefore I will focus on further improvement of the service and implementation of new functions in the Baltic States. Currently we are focusing on strengthening our IT team, so we will offer our customers shopping experience which will be even more convenient and make their daily lives easier. Having grown rapidly last year, we do not plan to reduce the pace this year,” says A. Jurgelevičius, the new manager of Barbora.

Andrius Mikalauskas will remain the head of Radas, which manages Barbora online stores in the Baltic States and Poland, and will be responsible for Barbora’s development. When talking about the company’s development prospects in the new market, A. Mikalauskas did not hide that there are plans to enter other cities of Poland as well.

“Barbora is taking its first steps in Warsaw, but we are already building further development plans. The main goal is to make the Polish Barbora the first choice for online shopping of residents of Warsaw, then moving to other cities of Poland. We have successfully achieved this in the Baltic States, and I believe that our business model will also pay off in Poland, with increasingly more residents of the country discovering and appreciating high quality of service and the best customer shopping experience.

“The steering wheel of the company in the Baltic States is moving to highly experienced hands, which have contributed to the growth of the company the most. I have no doubt that this will be a new impetus for Barbora to continue to grow in its home markets”, says A. Mikalauskas, Director of UAB Radas.

Last year, Barbora grew very rapidly, earning the turnover of 2019, which was EUR 50 million, in the first half of the year. Despite a significant increase in demand and pace, the company implemented development into all regions of the Baltic States during the first quarantine, opening up 95 Barbora Express goods pick-up stations. It also opened 7 new goods assembly centres in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, more than doubled its team, and entered a new market in Poland in the beginning of this year.

Additional information

Barbora - the largest e-grocery store in Baltics, offering fast and convenient home delivery of food and other goods. Barbora started operations in Lithuania in 2014 and expanded to Latvia and Estonia in 2018. In 2021 expansion continued to Poland.

Maxima Grupė owns the retail chains Maxima (in the Baltic countries), Stokrotka (in Poland), and T-Market (in Bulgaria), as well as e-grocer Barbora which operates in the Baltics.

Maxima Grupė’s consolidated revenue in the first half of 2020 grew by 6.3% versus the same period a year earlier to EUR 2.05 billion. Consolidated EBITDA was EUR 163 million.

Maxima Grupė is part of the Vilniaus Prekyba group, which controls and manages the group of subsidiary companies operating chains of retail stores and pharmacies as well as real estate development and property management companies in the Baltic States, Sweden, Poland and Bulgaria.