The subject of this paper is to analyze dividend policy of ten representative companies in the food industry sector. In the conditions of limited and expensive sources of financing, as a significant alternative to borrowing stands the stock market. In business of domestic corporations, however, the issue of new shares represents a rare event. A very important factor for future development of the primary equity market is an increase in volume of trading on the „asleep“ secondary market. Lack of demand and falling trading volume prevents the growth of share prices, and thus the possibility of realizing capital gains from their sale. In such circumstances, the main reason of investment in shares can be dividend yield. The goal of this paper is to analyze the opportunities and to provide guidelines in formulating effective dividend policies in order to attract certain groups of shareholders, among which the most important are institutional investors, which in their portfolios do not usually hold more than a few percent of the shares of individual companies.