We’ve made our shelf prices easier to understand by simplifying our pricing tickets and offering more goods at everyday low pricing (EDLP).

PAK'nSAVE 3 price tickets only Effective from July 2022	New World 4 price tickets only Effective from January 2023	Four Square 3 price tickets only Effective since 2022
Regular	Regular	Regular
Everyday Low Price = low price for longer	Everyday Low Price = low prices that last on 100s of items	Everyday Great Price = Great Prices that last
Extra Low = a price so low it won't last	Super Saver = big discounts for a limited time	Special = Our best deals for a limited time
	Club Deals = special discounts for Clubcard members.

More info tickets can be found on the websites for PAK'nSAVE, New World and Four Square.

 

We’ve undertaken significant work to introduce unit pricing, which lets shoppers see how much an item costs by weight, volume or number, as outlined by the Consumer Information Standards.

On 31 August 2023, the Consumer Information Standards (Unit Pricing for Grocery Products) Regulations 2023 came into effect. All qualifying physical grocery stores must comply by 31 August 2024 and online grocery stores by 31 August 2025.

As at August 2024:

• All products in all our stores in the North Island, including complex promotions, have unit pricing where possible.

• We are progressively updating our eCom sites across banners to ensure unit pricing compliance well ahead of the Aug 2025 deadline.

• We’re working with our suppliers to ensure that all data relating to unit pricing is complete and accurate prior to 31 August.

We've made our New World Clubcard loyalty programme terms and conditions easier to understand, including implementing changes to our New World Privacy Policy so it’s more customer friendly. We’ve also created a Clubcard FAQs webpage that shows how much must be spent instore to earn rewards points.

Instore shelf prices have historically been printed on paper or stickers and changed manually by team members. Electronic shelf labels (ESLs) are small, battery-powered electronic displays that present product and pricing information at the shelf edge. ESLs use wireless technology to communicate with each store’s central pricing hub to form a more dynamic way of ensuring up-to-date information is communicated to customers.

As at August 2024, 144 (84%) of our stores across the North Island have ESL systems in place.

• • PNS – 46 stores in total, only 5 are still on paper and the rest of the 41 are on ESL
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• • NW – 103 stores in total, 14 are still on paper and the rest of the 89 are on ESL
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• • 4SQ – 166 stores in total - 20 stores are on ESL and the rest are on paper

Our stores are committed to ensuring all advertised prices and shelf prices are honoured at the checkout.

If a customer believes they haven’t been charged the correct price, we encourage them to let us know so we can refund them directly.

Our local grocers firmly believe the price on the shelf is what customers should pay. Our supermarkets stock thousands of products, and we put a lot of focus on making sure our prices are correct at the checkout. If there’s a mistake, we aim to put it right quickly and refund customers if they’ve been overcharged. We’re on the same page as the Grocery Commissioner and have taken his lead on reviewing our policies and are taking steps – where we haven’t done so already – to help bring them into line with his expectations on refunds, promoting our refund policies, recording complaints and training team members on any new policies and processes.

We’ve updated our Refund & Returns Policy in December 2023 and made this more visible to our customers. For more information see here.

Every year we spend around $100 million on building new stores and refurbishing existing ones in local communities across the North Island.

Investments delivered in 2023 include:

• Nine new stores opened: New World Taumarunui, Four Square Eden Terrace, Four Square Te Kowhai, PAK’nSAVE Warkworth, Four Square Onehunga, Four Square Waverley, Four Square Mount Maunganui, Four Square Britomart and Four Square Fitzroy.

• 27 improvements to existing stores including a checkout upgrade for PAK’nSAVE Mill Street, seismic strengthening and a roof replacement for PAK’nSAVE Rotorua, a CO2 refrigeration replacement for PAK’nSAVE Sylvia Park, back-of-house safety review and design for Four Square stores and a carpark extension for Gilmours Wellington.

Across 2024-2025, we plan to open at least five new stores including Four Square Opunake, PAK’nSAVE Highland Park, New World The Sands Papamoa, New World Havelock North and New World Point Chevalier as well as multiple refurbishments across our portfolio.

Maintaining a network that can supply 300+ stores and serve 4.08 million customers every week requires ongoing investment, including major projects.

In March 2023, we opened our new cross dock and depot facility in Hastings, investing $20 million on the 3,000 sq m facility. That’s helping us transform the way we distribute groceries across the North Island.

In November 2023, we opened our new Grenada transport and milk depot in greater Wellington, investing $21 million on the 3,250 sq m facility that enables us to handle more freight than ever before, while providing capacity to support growth in the Wellington region and service future stores.

We’ve invested in novel e-commerce fulfilment formats, including:

• • ‘Drive-thru’ Click & Collect opening at PAK'nSAVE Albany, PAK’nSAVE Rotorua and PAK’nSAVE Warkworth.
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• • A trial partnership between Uber Eats and 21 stores, offering ultra-rapid grocery delivery.

We stock more than 60,000 different products across our 300+ stores. These are from suppliers of all shapes and sizes, including some of New Zealand’s most famous brands, the world’s largest global manufacturers and start-up Kiwi entrepreneurs looking to take on the world. We’re constantly looking for new products that offer consumers better value, higher quality and more choice, introducing around 7,000 new products on-shelf each year.

The North and South Island co-ops are continuing to keep the rate of price increases across stores below the rate of supplier cost rises, as part of their efforts to help New Zealand tame inflation.

Since May 2022, we’ve been comparing a basket of products in the same categories Stats NZ monitors to measure food price inflation across the North and South Island co-ops, keeping things transparent by informing consumers about the factors behind any price changes across that month.

• As at August 2024, we’d managed to keep our monthly food price increases below or equivalent to Stats NZ’s figure for 24 of the past 27 months.

• Two of the past five months have seen price decreases in the the co-ops’ comparable basket

 

Since August 2022, Foodstuffs has commissioned independent economics firm Infometrics to produce the monthly Infometrics-Foodstuffs NZ Grocery Supplier Cost Index (GSCI), measuring the change in the cost of over 60,000 goods, charged by suppliers to our North Island and South Island co-ops.

In August 2021, we committed to ending the use of restrictive land covenants and exclusivity provisions in leases, and immediately started a process to identify and remove any such clauses in existing tenancy contracts. While that process is underway, no covenant or exclusivity provision has been, or will be, enforced.

We no longer include restrictive covenants or lease exclusivity provisions in new property transactions. We support the Commerce (Grocery Sector Covenants) Amendment Act 2022, which deems covenants unenforceable.

As at August 2024:

• • We’ve removed 40 of the 56 restrictive covenants that were registered against blocks of land and made removing the remaining 16 an ongoing priority.
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• • We’ve removed restrictive covenants from 123 of the 196 affected titles specific to that land. Over time, the total number of affected titles may change as a result of subdivisions or amalgamations by third parties.
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• • 100% of the remaining covenants are registered against land we do not own. We are working with landowners to arrange for their removal.

Our co-operative does not buy land with the primary aim of leaving it undeveloped for a capital gain. Any land we invest in is solely for the purpose of developing it into a Foodstuffs store, at the right time for that specific community, depending on factors like population and infrastructure.

In March 2023, we opened our wholesale supply offering to qualifying wholesale customers, allowing retailers who are not members of our co-operatives to apply to buy goods from our distribution centres, for on-sale to consumers.

This infographic shows how the Foodstuffs co-ops currently operate, and how our wholesale supply offering sits within that framework.

As at August 2024:

• • 41 wholesale customers have been approved to purchase from our wholesale service.
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• • Over $1.3M worth of goods have been sold via our wholesale service.
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• • 341 suppliers have agreed to let their goods to be offered for sale via our wholesale service.

Qualifying customers can apply to access our wholesale service here.

The full text of the Grocery Industry Competition (Grocery Supply Code) Amendment Regulations 2023 (at 28 August 2023) can be viewed here.

A Commerce Commission factsheet summarising the Code (at 28 September 2023) can be read here. 

Since the Code took effect on 28 September 2023:

• • All members of our Merchandising team have received training in upholding the Code, as well as a large number of our store teams.

Every month our senior leaders host an online forum where suppliers can hear updates and ask questions. On average, around 350 suppliers join these monthly forums. 

We also send our suppliers a monthly email with relevant updates about what’s happening at our co-op, customer insights, our category review calendar and other information suppliers need to know.

For many years we’ve had a supplier working group that meets monthly and is tasked with improving how we work with our suppliers. As a result, we’ve received feedback on our grocery supply contracts, topics of interest to include in our supplier updates, feedback on supplier sentiment and input into our emerging supplier programme.  

Twice a year – usually March and September - our senior leaders host the Foodies Connect conference at our Support Centre in Māngere, Auckland. Around 500 supply partners attended the most recent Foodies Connect. For those that can’t make it in person, we also broadcast this session online.

Every two years we host a two-day expo where suppliers can connect with representatives from locally owned and operated New World, PAK’nSAVE and Four Square stores from across New Zealand. These representatives can taste, test and learn about new products from local and international suppliers. Our March 2023 Supplier Expo, the biggest food industry event of its kind in New Zealand, was attended by 350 supplier brands.

We’ve created a comprehensive guide for smaller suppliers that provides tips and tricks to help make it easier to get products on the shelf in our retail stores.  

In May 2023, we held our first Emerging Supplier Forum, which is designed to help our smallest suppliers succeed. As at August 2024 we have held 23 forums throughout the country with a further six to be held before the end of the year. The forums have been attended by over 400 people to date and we are now seeing products appearing in stores as a result. Our annual national Emerge competition is now underway with finalists selected in small supplier and start up categories, with the final event being held at the end of August.

We are in our second year of running our annual FSNI supplier survey through independent, third-partner organisation, Advantage Group. We will continue to take the relevant learnings from the survey and apply them to our co-op, as appropriate.

Existing and prospective suppliers can find out more about being a Foodstuffs supplier on our 'Partnering with us' webpages, including the Supplier Community webpage here.