{"id":602580,"date":"2026-09-16T22:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T22:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/602580\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T22:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T22:14:11","slug":"foodstuffs-says-nationals-plan-to-break-up-new-world-and-paknsave-would-increase-food-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/602580\/","title":{"rendered":"Foodstuffs says National\u2019s plan to break up New World and Pak\u2019nSave would increase food costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cOur history is full of independent owners coming together to create economies of scale to be competitive for customers,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cPotentially unwinding our business makes us less competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

He denied that Foodstuffs had consulted lawyers, saying the issue was \u201cabout New Zealand consumers and getting the best value to them\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked if a Government could legally \u201cupend a market\u201d, Waddell said: \u201cWe\u2019re retailers. We turn up every day to trade our grocery stores. It\u2019s not where we play the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waddell said the market was heavily regulated and New Zealand already had \u201cfull oversight\u201d of the industry. <\/p>\n

He also downplayed a 2022 Commerce Commission report which said the supermarket industry made $1 million in excess profits every day<\/a>, saying it was based on \u201cassumptions and theory\u201d.<\/p>\n

Eric Rush – who owns the Whang\u0101rei New World – told Ryan Bridge Today the plan was \u201creally quite shocking\u201d and was surprised to see it coming from National.<\/p>\n

He also questioned the rationale for leaving the Australian-owned Woolworths alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re talking like the [Foodstuffs] co-op\u2019s this big corporate giant – it\u2019s not. It\u2019s me and my wife. It\u2019s Todd and Lillian who own Pak\u2019nSave down the road. It\u2019s Sione and Alice who own \u014ct\u0101huhu Four Square.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rush said his store already competed aggressively with the local Pak\u2019nSave as well as with the city\u2019s three Woolworths.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s only a certain amount of dollars in Whang\u0101rei and I\u2019d rather have that dollar in my bank account than Todd\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rush said the regions would suffer most from a split as rural stores would pay more for the same products.<\/p>\n

For every dollar that came through his tills, \u201cI get to keep 3.8 cents if I do a good job,\u201d Rush said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work long and hard hours and we make a decent living. There\u2019s a lot of risk involved, there\u2019s a lot of heartache.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was more than happy to see increased competition, \u201cbut there\u2019s a reason Aldi\u2019s not here. There a reason that Walmart\u2019s not here. The 3.8c is probably the reason they\u2019re not here. We just haven\u2019t got the population and scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

National has said its policy would require sign-off from the Commerce Commission after a six-month assessment, which would happen after the election.<\/p>\n

A cost-benefit analysis had looked at splitting up both Woolworths and Foodstuffs but found the Foodstuffs-only split was the preferred option, Willis said.<\/p>\n

New Zealand First claimed that National was stealing its policies, while Act leader David Seymour criticised the plan as \u201cattacking business\u201d. However, he didn\u2019t explicitly rule out signing up to the policy in a future coalition agreement.<\/p>\n

BusinessNZ yesterday compared the plan to Labour\u2019s oil and gas ban and NZ First\u2019s plan to split up the gentailers, saying it would deter foreign investors and send a \u201cchilling signal\u201d that the Government could break up businesses<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOur history is full of independent owners coming together to create economies of scale to be competitive for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[95,27126,138,63338,9942,802,124,154598,15124,564,58925,5345,296,7494,1446,3556,71084,23158,117,111,139,69,27952,4762,2170,12937,15483,2687,312,653,97,61,810,377,6730],"class_list":["post-602580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-and","tag-break","tag-business","tag-chains","tag-collective","tag-costs","tag-could","tag-efficient","tag-fight","tag-food","tag-foodstuffs","tag-increase","tag-into","tag-less","tag-making","tag-national","tag-nationals","tag-nationwide","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paknsave","tag-party","tag-plan","tag-prices","tag-promising","tag-saying","tag-says","tag-stores","tag-supermarket","tag-to","tag-up","tag-world","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602580","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=602580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}