For many Poles, the most visible sign of the end of 45 years of Communism in 1989 was the ability finally to buy long-denied consumer goods, something which immediately brought the newly liberated country to the attention of western companies.

The first movers came to sell such things as soap, shampoo, hamburgers and soft-drinks to 38m people who had been starved of the ability to buy goods such as toilet paper and razor blades during the dreary 1980s, when the country’s centrally planned economy hit bottom.