Nearly 500 owner-operators of Pak’nSave, New World and Four Square stores across New Zealand, from Houhora to Stewart Island, have signed open letters raising concerns over plans to break up the Foodstuffs co-operatives.
The signatories have questioned how the change could affect grocery prices, supply chain costs, regional communities and investment in their businesses.
The letters say Foodstuffs is owned by the people who operate its supermarkets. The co-operative model provides shared buying power, logistics, technology and infrastructure that individual stores could not efficiently replicate on their own.
The operators said the proposal did not fully account for the nature of the co-operative model or the support systems owned by the retailers. They say breaking up the model could increase costs and complexity for stores, particularly those serving smaller communities, and affect services used by customers and communities.
At Foodstuffs North Island, owner-operators are concerned that a break-up could reduce the scale and infrastructure that support stores. Foodstuffs South Island owner-operators say structural changes could increase costs and create uncertainty, particularly for stores serving rural and remote communities.
The owners said they support efforts to improve grocery affordability but questioned whether a split would achieve that goal.
The open letters from the two co-operatives raise concerns about changes to a co-operative model that has operated in New Zealand for about a century, as well as questions about how the proposal would be implemented and its effects on stores, customers and communities.
- Further reading: Radical Foodstuffs split agenda receives little support.
