Cyclone Vaianu<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe storm is expected to hit the North Island on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The car park at PAK’nSAVE Wairau in the North Shore suburb of Glenfield was full, with dozens of cars circling around.<\/p>\n
A community post reported people were lining up 10 deep at the checkouts. Trolleys appeared to be full of bottled water and toilet paper.<\/p>\n
Stephanie Gallardo goes to PAK’nSAVE Wairau Road every Saturday.<\/p>\n
“Whether there’s a cyclone or not, we will go to PAK’nSAVE around this time of day,” she said.<\/p>\n
![\"Stephanie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQC903_Image_13_jpg.jpeg\")
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\nStephanie Gallardo [left] at PAK’nSAVE Wairau Road was not too worried about Cyclone Vaianu.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Pretoria Gordon\n<\/p>\n
Gallardo told RNZ it was the busiest she had ever seen the supermarket be.<\/p>\n
“Most of them are panic buying, really,” she said.<\/p>\n
Gallardo was not too worried about Cyclone Vaianu, especially as she was originally from the Philippines.<\/p>\n
Vladimir and Zoya were disappointed to find a lot of what they wanted to buy was already sold out when they arrived at 9am on Saturday.<\/p>\n
![\"Vladimir](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQCB8J_SupermarketQ_3_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nVladimir (right) and Zoya (left).
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Pretoria Gordon\n<\/p>\n
“The price is so high, and there’s not really anything in the market. We can’t find some products. It’s already sold out. So many people – maybe before the cyclone [comes] in – the people just worrying about the food and everything,” Zoya told RNZ.<\/p>\n
The couple said they had done their usual shop, “because we always have some food in the pantry [just in] case”.<\/p>\n
Jess Clark said PAK’nSAVE Wairau Road was her usual supermarket, and she had done her usual shop too – except for bottled water.<\/p>\n
![\"Amid](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQCB8J_SupermarketQ_4_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nJess Clark.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Pretoria Gordon\n<\/p>\n
“But that’s because our water’s actually been gross in Beach Haven already, so we just thought we’d get some just in case.”<\/p>\n
Clark said the car park was “crazy” but inside the supermarket was “not too bad”.<\/p>\n
“They’ve got every single checkout open.”<\/p>\n
![\"Jess](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQCB8J_SupermarketQ_2_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAmid.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Pretoria Gordon\n<\/p>\n
While Amid said the queue to enter the supermarket was not as bad as the one for fuel.<\/p>\n
“It’s less worse than that. It was easy,” he said.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queues in the car park at PAK’nSAVE Wairau Road. Photo: RNZ \/ Pretoria Gordon Queues have been forming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-373869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Customers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQCGBS_Image_jfif.jpeg\")
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