The discovery of old rat nests and another rodent capture this morning has once again delayed the re-opening of Countdown Dunedin South.
Woolworths New Zealand stores director Jason Stockhill said in a statement this afternoon he was looking forward to welcoming customers back to the store "as soon as we can".
He did not give a specific day he thought the store might be open again.
The supermarket's re-opening had been repeatedly postponed due to new rat sightings after it was closed two weeks ago due to rodent issues.
Stockhill said: "It’s important that both ourselves and MPI are confident before we reopen to the community. This morning, there was a sighting of a rat and subsequent capture.
"Separately, this morning we removed wall cladding in the store and uncovered evidence of old rat nests — but no signs of live nests.
"Again, we apologise to our customers for the ongoing disruption our closure is causing, and look forward to welcoming them back in store as soon as we can."
He thanked customers and staff members at the store for their ongoing patience.
Pest management expert Paul Craddock said it won't just be supermarkets having issues at the moment. (Source: Breakfast)
Woolworths originally told shoppers the store would be closed over a weekend from February 9 as pest control dealt with rats.
The supermarket chain has been attempting to rid the South Dunedin store of rodents since last October. It was confident it had fixed the problem last month before new rat sightings were reported at the store.
There have been a spate of recent rodent sightings at supermarkets across New Zealand.
Last week, a rat was filmed crawling along the ground at a West Auckland Pak'n Save.
Meanwhile, a Chinese tourist recorded a small mouse crawling inside a salad at a Christchurch Countdown earlier this month.
Woolworths says workers reminded of food safety
Stockhill also said today that Woolworths was in the process of re-training staff amid the recent wave of bad publicity over rodent issues.
"As shared on Friday, we’ve been taking ongoing action to ensure that our pest management is performing as it should be," he said in a statement.
"This has included refreshing all of our stores on food safety protocols and procedures, reviewing our internal escalation processes, and ensuring we’re working well with our pest control partner, Rentokil.
"We have now refreshed over 90% of our team in our food safety procedures, and our senior operations leaders have visited 186 of our stores with the final few visits to our furthest stores happening tomorrow.
"We’re continuing to work very closely with Rentokil and NZ Food Safety and we are meeting with them daily to discuss progress."
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