Seven Sharp reporter Julian Lee takes a walk down the aisles to look at the history of the grocery store in New Zealand and investigates a Nelson fruit and vegetable box service that's growing strong.
A self-service supermarket would have seemed an odd thing indeed 100 years ago. New Zealanders shopped at small general stores in towns and larger department stores in the cities. Everything was behind a counter.
You’d probably hand a list to a clerk behind that very counter who’d fetch the things you wanted, or you might simply point to things.
There was a certain logic here – there was very little in the way of food packaging, and often, the clerk would have to measure things out like cheese and cloth that they had bought in bulk. Additionally, back then, personalised customer service was a highly valued commodity.
The odd general store still exists in remote places today – Oturehua in Otago and Bainham in Golden Bay. Their services are greatly appreciated by locals and admired by visitors. But New Zealand grocery shopping has been marching on.
The justification for the traditional store system began eroding with modern packaging and refrigeration. Why would you need a clerk to fetch butter for you when you could fetch a block yourself? The idea of self-service seemed to develop naturally.
The Piggly Wiggly
In 1916, the first supermarket in the world opened in Memphis, Tennessee – the Piggly Wiggly. The Waipawa Times reported: “When a customer goes into a Piggly Wiggly grocery store, she usually carries a basket; if not, she can get one inside. Once within, she is confronted with shelves and bins of groceries with prices plainly marked, but there are no clerks to wait on her. She merely takes what she wants and puts it in their basket.
“The way out, and the only way out, is by the cashier, who looks at her purchases and takes her money.”
What a novelty. It was such a strange concept back then – an everyday experience today.
In 1922, Southlander Ben Sutherland was concerned about the rising price of food – so to lower costs, he created the Self Help Co-operative, where people – you know it – helped themselves. He also asked customers to bring their own wrapping paper and twine to keep prices down.
Another trend was developing alongside self-service. Department stores had been forming into chains of department stores – big brands right across the country. The names of two of them, Foodstuffs (1922) and Woolworths (1929)*, survive today and they now own most of the supermarkets in New Zealand.
The Four Square general store chain, now under the Foodstuffs umbrella, adopted the self-service model in 1948. Ten years later, entrepreneur Tommy Ah Chee opened the first American-style supermarket, Foodtown, in Otahuhu on the Great South Road. The Progressive chain bought Chee out three years later.
One by one, the stores became two
Chee had opened a can of baked beans.
New World, SuperValue and Woolworths sprung up in the 1960s. 3 Guys in the 70s, Countdown, Big Fresh, Price Chopper and Pak’nSave in the 80s, FreshChoice in the 90s. One by one, Progressive bought some, Foodstuffs the others. By the 2000s, the process was complete. New Zealand was left with a supermarket duopoly. Foodstuffs (New World, Pak’nSave, Four Square) and Woolworths (Woolworths, SuperValue, FreshChoice).**
And with it, concerns about prices. Take a deep plunge into economic theory, and you’ll find all sorts of arguments connecting duopolies with prices, whether higher or lower. There’s no room for that here.
The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated concerns about the issue. Inflation everywhere following the pandemic has only made things worse.
Last year, it was reported that food price inflation was the highest in 36 years – including a 22% rise in fruit and vegetables. Yet just a week ago, Foodstuffs exclaimed that fruit and vegetable prices were plummeting, offering examples of tomatoes, which had decreased 54% since last year and lettuce, 40%.
Regardless of what you think about the issue, fruit and vegetables are generally cheaper at local greengrocers and weekend vege markets (perhaps not some of the fancier farmer’s markets). It's often much more affordable. So why don’t people bypass the supermarkets?
Convenience. People like the convenience of buying everything in one place. Tony Mihaka-Rodda, who owns Benge’s greengrocers in central Nelson, says people don’t price in the cost of that convenience — a price which can be pretty staggering.
A problem to be solved
Folks at the Nelson Environment Centre have been watching the problem of food prices in New Zealand.
The centre is something else entirely. Starting as a recycling facility in 1976, it has branched into various social projects. They give away about four tons of food a week.
Chief executive Anton Drazevic says they reach a particular segment of the population but many struggling folks steer clear. Many New Zealanders don’t want to be seen as getting a handout.
Hence, the Hapori Box. A $15 fruit and veg box you can order online — eliminating any potential shame of receiving a handout.
The fruit and vegetables are A-grade and supermarket quality. Proponents say the quality exceeds that of the supermarket because it’s fresher and full of plus-sized veggies. The supermarkets reject things like broccoli and lettuce that are too big because they’re too tricky to stack neatly on the shelf.
Best yet, it’s not charity.
The greengrocers receive enough to cover their costs and the benefit of increasing volumes.
Mihaka-Rodda from Benge’s says it may not be profitable now, but the fruit and veg market is a “numbers game”, and the higher volume a small outfit like Benge’s can do, the better for them.
The consumer wins, the local growers win, the greengrocers win, the environment wins. Even the distributors win – community groups like the Victory Community Centre and Helping Families also receive a small bonus and can add another service to their repertoire.
It’s grafting business and charity together. A bit of capitalism, a bit of socialism, a bit of common sense, a bit of goodwill. And potentially, a whole new stage in how we distribute food in New Zealand.
* The history of supermarket brands is somewhat complicated. Woolworths New Zealand was taken over by Progressive in 2001, which was taken over by Woolworths Australia in 2005, a separate entity.
** Technically, Foodstuffs is split into two entities. Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island. However, they do not compete or occupy any sites on the other’s island, so for all intents and purposes, it's a duopoly.
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