The collapse of "Shop for the People" is no surprise. The business plan of this swindler was made in a way that justified spending 10 million. And the author of the scheme at the same time flew to Dubai 33 times on a private jet.
In Bulgaria, it is impossible to punish politicians for populist projects that fail. On the other hand, everyone - both the protesters against the backstage "Peevski-Borisov" model, and the others who continue to vote for him, and the non-voters - provided the ten million leva for this senseless initiative. Just as all citizens pay in solidarity for the serial failures of the prosecutor's office subordinate to a single center.
A scheme for draining
Nine months after its launch, the state-owned company “Shop for People“ EAD is closing. Acting Minister of Agriculture and Food Ivan Hristanov is putting an end to the project, created on the idea of the leader of the DPS-New Beginning Delyan Peevski. The inspection ordered by Hristanov revealed that for the first three months “Shop for People“ had achieved less than a third of the planned revenues – only 0.42 million leva against a planned 1.48 million leva.
Against this background, the turnover targets of 37 million leva in 2026 and 103 million leva in 2027 seem even more unrealistic. For the acting Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov “this increasingly looks like a state-funded experiment in embezzlement, and we have already seen “Magnitsky” bankruptcies in Bulgaria.
However, the fact that last summer the GERB cabinet immediately fulfilled Peevski's request to establish the company – without debate, without an assessment of the effect and without public discussion, is a clear enough answer as to who was actually in charge. Considering the consequences of Peevski's influence on GERB, it would not be a bad idea for leader Boyko Borisov to also calculate the rice, sugar and oil "for the people", which came out salty for his party.
The whole scheme is far from only social effects, but also a retail chain. “Shop for the People“ does not open stores, but only shelves or stands in retail outlets that have agreed to partner and sell goods with up to a 10% markup. The Ministry of Agriculture announced this “low-cost model“ at the very beginning as shop-in-shop, mobile outlets, partnerships with cooperative and regional networks. Along with this, it also announced intentions for online trade and B2B distribution.
110 shelves in 4 months
In practice, “Shop for the People“ does not have its own stores, and from the available data it is not clear how the logistics are organized - whether the company itself carries out deliveries or relies on external contractors. There are no public procedures for selecting suppliers, as well as criteria for including products. For nine months, the management has not managed to write the conditions for purchasing goods on its website, where the inscription "Expect soon..." sits.
The new "narmag", by association with socialism, launched in December 2025 with stands in 70 stationary and one mobile site, mainly in small settlements in the Plovdiv region. Four months later, the outgoing three-member Board of Directors reports a "network of 110 sites in nearly 90 settlements" - that is, about 40 more shelves. It is unclear how many of them actually function and how many exist only on paper.
The management of “Shop for People“ submitted a collective resignation with one month's notice, arguing that it was not sufficiently supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. The three-member council highlights the efforts made and the claim that in the beginning they worked for remuneration of 400 euros.
However, the company's business plan, which Deutsche Welle has at its disposal, shows that for the period August 2025 - April 2026, a total of 513,636 leva was spent on remuneration (it was prepared in leva, ed.). For the first month of work - August 2025, 30,000 leva went to staff, for September - 43,308 leva, and in the following months the expenses exceed 57 thousand.
The business plan was made in a way that would justify spending 10 million, said Agriculture Minister Hristanov. Eight million leva of this amount will be returned to the budget, the rest has been spent.
The piggy banks
The collapse of “Shop for the People“ does not surprise anyone. The result is foreshadowed when populism replaces economic logic. “There was no way to convince people that the state can sell beans and Ruse boiled meat, while at the same time the stain is that the ideologist of the whole initiative is a person who has flown to Dubai 33 times in the last year on a private plane“, commented the acting Agriculture Minister.
This failure confirms that the oligarchic model is based on three pillars: dependent politicians, corruption and a subordinate judicial system. If the GERB leader had resisted Peevski's “order“ and Prime Minister Zhelyazkov had not given the go-ahead to the actions of Agriculture Minister Georgi Tahov, another experiment with state money would not have taken place.
The three “pillars“ guarantee that public procurement and European funds are directed to precisely defined business circles. So the destruction of the “oligarchic model“, proclaimed by Rumen Radev, means the interruption of the channeled flows of public resources. It remains for Bulgarian society to understand whether these are indeed his views.
And other fruitless projects
The good news with “Shop for the People“ is that the government terminated the project in time. Another fruitless initiative - the State Oil Company (SOC), existed for two and a half years without performing any activity, during which time it only paid salaries to hired officials, before being closed. Created at the end of Boyko Borisov's third cabinet with the idea of replacing the State Reserve for fuel stocks and building a chain of nearly 100 state-owned gas stations as competition to private ones, it was ingloriously liquidated. SOC cost taxpayers 2 million leva, and the amount was found out thanks to an inquiry by MP Martin Dimitrov from “Democratic Bulgaria“.
The joint-stock company “South Stream Bulgaria“, registered in 2010; however, it continues to exist, although the gas pipeline project was terminated in December 2014. Its executive director Igor Elkin filed property declarations as a person holding a high public office. According to the latter, for 2025 his annual income was 60,850 leva. (Elkin is a former executive director of the liquidated Bulgarian company of „Gazprom“ – „Topenergji“.)
„Magazin za horata“ is ending, but not the model that created it. With Radev's absolute majority, any populist idea will be able to be implemented, and the falcons will not stop flying.
This text expresses the opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State News Agency as a whole.