Friday, 27 August 2021

Announced today, all regions of New Zealand will remain in Alert Level 4 until 11:59pm, Tuesday 31 August. Then all regions south of the Auckland boundary will move to Alert Level 3 from 11:59pm Tuesday 31 August, while Auckland and Northland will remain in Alert Level 4.

Our stores remain 100% committed to ensuring New Zealanders have their grocery needs met safely as we continue to fight the latest outbreak of Covid-19.

Throughout this lockdown, our supermarkets and integrated supply chain are prepared, and our stores have good supply. We want to thank customers who have been shopping normal throughout this current lockdown and remind them their actions mean everyone has a fair chance at purchasing essential items.

Recent research undertaken by Foodstuffs shows New Zealanders are supportive of the Ministry of Health’s announcement for people aged 12 and over to be required to wear a face covering when visiting any essential services during Alert Level 4. We’ve seen great compliance and support so far and we’d like to thank our shoppers for this.

Face coverings will remain mandatory for staff and shoppers visiting essential services at Alert Level 3. We welcome the government’s decision to keep this mandate in place. For customers who have an exemption, we do ask them to please have the correct documentation ready when visiting our stores, otherwise we do reserve the right to refuse entry.

Along with this, we encourage everyone nationwide to always scan the COVID tracer app, maintain the 2m social distance, nominate one person in the household to shop and ask a friend or neighbour to shop on your behalf if you are feeling unwell.

All our stores nationwide will continue to operate with additional safety measures seen during Alert Level 4. Customers at our supermarkets will continue to see some staff protection measures in their local store, including perspex protective screens at checkout, floor decals communicating the appropriate 2m physical distancing length, staff wearing masks and to maintain the social distancing measures, we will be limiting the number of customers in store at any one time.

For customers who are unable to come to our stores, we encourage them to ask a friend or neighbour to shop for them. If this is not possible, we have the following options:

We’re proud the doors of all our stores are still open so we can continue to provide New Zealanders with their essential food and groceries in a safe shopping environment. Please be patient, considerate and kind and we’ll continue to get through this together.

Kia kaha.