Orlen Says Non-Fuel Revenue Now Matches Fuel Sales, Opens Unstaffed Store Off-Forecourt

Fuel retailer Orlen has opened its first fully automated self-service Stop Cafe store outside the grounds of a filling station, near the Prague-Branik railway station, according to Penize.cz. The store operates 24 hours a day.

The move follows a shift in the company's revenue mix. "Our revenue from the non-fuel segment has already matched revenue from fuel sales, and we now want to use that potential outside filling stations as well," said Agnieszka Bobrukiewicz, a member of the board of the Orlen Unipetrol group responsible for regional retail.

That equalisation is the substance of the announcement. For a refiner-retailer, forecourt convenience sales carry different margin and working-capital characteristics from motor fuel, and moving the format off the forecourt severs the format from the fuel pump entirely.

The store carries the standard food and drink range, quick-service catering and the coffee corner familiar from Orlen filling stations. Rostislav Moravec, director of the Orlen filling station network in the Czech Republic, said the site was chosen deliberately for its footfall: "This is a place with a high frequency of people moving through, where our Stop Cafe store will improve local service provision".

Access runs through banking infrastructure rather than staff. Customers enter using the DoKapsy application from CSOB, which verifies their identity via bank identity. The same access method is used at the automated stores of the Coop retail network, according to the article.

The purchase sequence is entirely customer-executed. The buyer downloads the application, registers, confirms bank identity, enters using a QR code, selects goods, scans them at the checkout and pays by card or mobile phone.

Orlen says operational security rests on identification of every customer at entry, a camera system and a connection linking the store to a central protection desk.

The format matters beyond a single site because it tests whether a fuel retailer's brand and supply chain travel to locations with no fuel demand at all. A transport interchange has passenger flow but no pump, and the economics rest on convenience margin and near-zero staffing rather than on fuel volume drawing customers inside. Bank identity as the entry credential also shifts the cost of customer verification onto an existing financial rail, which is the same design choice already visible at Coop.

The announcement was published on Penize.cz on August 6, 2026, in its Aktuality section under the byline pa, and republished with permission from Penize.cz as the original source of the full text.