Online supermarket Paddock to Pantry was started by the Kennerley family back in 2017.
Kennerley said it was nice to be operating from a purpose-built new store, bringing to life a vision that wasn’t possible with their first store, based in Karaka.
The new store is also being used as a test location for the business’ ability to supply almost all of its goods from its own purpose-built warehouse.
The warehouse investment of circa $10 million, announced back in May, has allowed the business to triple its range and capacity significantly, increasing the grocery deliveries it can make across New Zealand by a factor of 10.
Kennerley said a challenge most independent supermarket operators face is the large number of deliveries and associated paperwork from each supplier they receive.
“As an example, we’ve previously had over 100 suppliers making deliveries to our store across a fortnight. The time taken by staff to check, receipt each delivery, and for our admin team to subsequently pay for these goods, is significant.
“If we can reduce the number of direct deliveries to our store to less than 10, this reduces the time and cost of operating the store. It also reduces the cost to suppliers as they are sending more volume to our warehouse without any additional distribution costs.”
He said the simplification would allow the business to deliver better retail prices than would otherwise be possible.
Lower prices meant more opportunity to compete with the supermarket duopoly of Foodstuffs and Woolworths, but Kennerley said his core focus would remain on growing its nationwide online grocery business.
That side of the business has continued to grow month on month, with the recent addition of key brands such as Arnott’s, Maggi and Old El Paso adding more than 500 new products to its shelves.
“Selling online is where I believe the biggest opportunity for us lies.
“With our national pricing, the prices we offer for customers in regional towns can make us a very attractive option.”
But that doesn’t mean the business won’t continue to look for more physical store opportunities, with Kennerly looking forward to seeing how the local community reacts to the new store.
“We’re looking forward to 2026. In 2025 we’ve invested a lot of time setting up the building blocks that in 2026 we can use to continue our journey to provide Kiwis with another choice where they buy their groceries.”
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
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