Chery brand returns to New Zealand with hybrid focus and ute rumours
Chery has confirmed the launch of its core brand in New Zealand, expanding the Chinese automaker's local presence alongside its existing Omoda and Jaecoo marques. Vehicles will be sold through an established dealer network, with 10 sites across the country already supporting the group's other brands.
Dealerships will be located in Whangarei, Auckland (North, Central, South), Pukekohe, Hamilton, Tauranga, Taupo, Lower Hutt and Christchurch. Sales and aftersales will be handled by the same retailers that began representing Omoda and Jaecoo in early 2024.
'We are confident that our vehicles will exceed expectations by delivering outstanding features at an accessible price point,' said Lewis Lu, CEO of Chery Australia and New Zealand.
Chery has not yet confirmed which vehicles will launch locally, but the New Zealand line-up is expected to mirror what's currently available in Australia under the Chery name. This includes a trio of SUVs: Tiggo 4 Pro : A compact SUV priced from A$23,990 drive-away (~NZ$25,500), targeting the budget-conscious end of the segment
: A compact SUV priced from A$23,990 drive-away (~NZ$25,500), targeting the budget-conscious end of the segment Tiggo 7 Pro : A mid-sized SUV starting from A$39,990 (~NZ$43,000), with a focus on comfort and tech
: A mid-sized SUV starting from A$39,990 (~NZ$43,000), with a focus on comfort and tech Tiggo 8 Pro: A large seven-seater SUV priced from A$47,990 (~NZ$52,000), positioned to compete with more premium rivals
Several of these models are likely to be offered with Chery's 'Super Hybrid' powertrain. The petrol-electric system blends combustion and electric drive for improved efficiency and lower emissions, aligning with the brand's sustainability push in global markets.
While no ute has been formally announced, there is growing speculation that Chery is developing a dual-cab pickup to compete with offerings from GWM, LDV and BYD. Australian media have reported early-stage testing of a new chassis and powertrain platform designed for utility applications, potentially placing Chery in the running for a slice of the lucrative light commercial market.
More information about the New Zealand launch—including model availability, pricing, and hybrid rollout—is expected in the coming weeks.
This is not the first time the Chery brand has been on sale in the New Zealand market.
In the early 2010s Ateco Automotive, now the distributors of BYD, had a short-run with Chery. It sold the Chery J1, J6 and J11 cars, which while finding some buyers looking for 'cheap' wheels, were arguably not ready for western markets.
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NZ Herald
7 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Global ‘mining mafia' feeds China's appetite for gold, investigation shows
As part of a strategic effort to reduce reliance on the US dollar, insulate itself from potential United States sanctions and build its own capacity to influence the international monetary system, China is procuring gold at a voracious pace. This drive has fuelled and facilitated a surge in illicit gold mining across the Global South, inflicting a trail of environmental destruction from Indonesia to Ghana to French Guiana, a Washington Post investigation found. The Post examination of China's role in the booming trade in illicit gold is based on a review of satellite imagery, trade data, public records, and dozens of interviews with gold researchers, law enforcement and government officials across three continents. In Indonesia, where the proliferation of illicit mining has been among the most widespread and least studied, the Post obtained internal government documents and visited half a dozen secluded gold-mining communities being transformed by Chinese-led operations. Chinese workers at these locations declined to speak to the Post, but Chinese mining operators in Indonesia said in interviews that investment in the country's gold sector is spiking. In videos aimed at investors on Chinese social media, Chinese miners advertise 'free and easy' access to Indonesia's vast gold deposits. In May, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned that organised crime was embedding itself so deeply in gold supply chains that it poses a 'serious global threat'. As Chinese demand drives gold prices above US$3000 per ounce, drug cartels, terrorists, and mercenary groups are deepening their involvement in the sector, UNODC said. Almost all these actors work in some capacity with Chinese mining concerns, which are present from 'mine to market' and have the greatest ability to work in the most unexploited locations, according to those who study the gold sector. Many illicit gold operations are being financed and operated directly by Chinese private investors who appear to be operating with little oversight or repercussion from Chinese authorities, investigators say. This has drawn allegations from gold-rich countries that Beijing is permitting the ransacking of gold deposits abroad, enabling a rapidly mutating trade that UN officials warn is propping up a range of other criminal activities. Makeshift tents at an illegal gold mine set up by Chinese investors in the village of Sekotong in Indonesia. Photo / Muhammad Fadli, The Washington Post Chinese officials have pushed back against these allegations, including the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, Tong Defa, who in June said it was a 'significant injustice' to blame Beijing for the spread of illegal gold mining. The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters did not respond to detailed questions from the Post. The Chinese Embassy in Washington said it was 'not aware' of the allegations made by gold-rich countries about China's role and declined to comment. 'Chinese networks have become deeply involved in the illicit gold trade,' said David Soud, a minerals analyst who has written reports on gold for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 'Much of the gold they mine or otherwise acquire goes to China via highly opaque supply chains.' This is routinely done without the payment of local taxes or royalties, officials and analysts say. Illicit Chinese syndicates, according to Soud and other investigators, operate differently from both traditional, artisanal gold miners and industrial, legal mining companies, including those from China. A woman sifts through crushed ore for gold deposits on Sumbawa. Photo / Muhammad Fadli, The Washington Post While artisanal miners use little to no machinery, illicit Chinese operators employ crushers, excavators and other tools to extract at a scale that rivals industrial mines. Unlike industrial mines, analysts say, the syndicates operate without regard to environmental, health and safety regulations, degrading forests and rivers at rates not seen before in many communities. In the sites where they operate, Chinese syndicates are also driving a transition from using mercury for processing to cyanide – a more effective but also more hazardous process when employed without strict controls, according to mining experts. 'This system has gotten much more complex and much more organised,' said Brad Brooks-Rubin, a former US State Department official who worked on mineral supply chains in the Biden Administration. 'The Western policy world has largely missed what has happened.' The operations of PT Amman Mineral International, a legal Indonesian-owned mine on western Sumbawa. Illicit mining is spreading on the eastern side of the island. Photo / Muhammad Fadli, The Washington Post In a sign that the issue is just now emerging as a policy concern, the Trump Administration in March for the first time designated gold among the minerals vital to the US as part of an executive order to 'reduce our reliance on foreign nations'. In a hearing a few days later, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, Representative Chris Smith (Republican-New Jersey), described China and its mining interests as the 'greatest beneficiaries' of the illicit gold trade. Beijing has rebuffed appeals from regulators in gold-rich countries to help crack down on Chinese-run mining syndicates and opted out of multilateral efforts to counter the underground trade, officials and advocates said in interviews. According to a Post review of government statements, court records and news reports, authorities in at least 15 gold-rich countries have brought cases against Chinese nationals and companies over illicit gold mining since the start of 2024. – In Ghana, Africa's top gold-exporting country, officials say Chinese syndicates have laid waste to swathes of Ghana's west and south, and are now moving to the country's north. 'The Chinese Government is doing nothing about it,' said Ghanaian lawmaker Tiah Abdul-Kabiru Mahama, calling the Chinese Communist Party 'complicit' in the destruction. Hundreds of Chinese nationals have been arrested just in recent months. Ghana has tried seeking the help of Chinese authorities, but to little avail, Lands and Natural Resources Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah said in an interview. Miners who are deported are routinely able to find their way back into the country, Buah said, adding, 'It has been tough'. – In Indonesia, Asia's biggest gold producer after China, officials at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources say they receive reports almost daily of illegal gold mines across the country's sprawling archipelago, the biggest of which are linked to Chinese nationals, based on preliminary investigations. In one high-profile case last year, Indonesian authorities asked the Chinese Embassy to help identify its citizens and assist with the probe. 'They were not co-operative,' said an Indonesian official. The Chinese suspects fled Indonesia, the official added. - In French Guiana, an overseas department of France in South America, Chinese investors form a 'crucial logistical chain' in an illicit gold market that the French military spends tens of millions of dollars annually to combat, said the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), a defence think-tank funded in part by the French Government, in a 2023 report. 'The involvement of Chinese players,' FRS said, 'is part of a global context of resource capture and predation, encouraged or facilitated by the Chinese government.' Mystery holdings China has been among the world's biggest buyers of gold for over a decade, according to data from the World Gold Council, a trade association. But it's a mystery, analysts say, as to how much gold it actually has – and where it comes from. The Chinese Communist Party is heavily involved in acquiring gold for the state, whether through the People's Bank of China, brokers or via industrial policies that have encouraged retail buying and incentivised gold mining abroad, gold and financial analysts say. In 2017, Song Xin, then president of the China Gold Association, said the Belt and Road Initiative, China's US$1 trillion ($1.68t) global infrastructure programme, is 'also a golden road'. From 2000 to 2024, Chinese state-owned creditors inked 85 loan commitments for gold extraction and processing projects across the Global South, according to data provided to the Post by AidData, a research lab at William and Mary in Virginia. It's now easier for Chinese miners to find work outside China than at home, said Zeng Shanyue, a Chinese gold-mining investor based in Indonesia. Many of those going abroad originate from the southern province of Guangxi, which has a long tradition of mining. But businessmen from elsewhere in China, like his province of Zhejiang, are also moving in. 'Everyone,' Zeng said, 'is mining'. A ute carries gold ore for processing at an illegal gold mine in eastern Indonesia. Photo / Muhammad Fadli, The Washington Post To China's strategic thinkers, it is not enough. 'China's gold reserves are still insufficient and should be increased further,' said Liu Ping, a senior CCP official, in March at the annual meeting of China's top political advisory body. Gold is 'a crucial tool' for the country's national security, said Zhang Zhigang, another party official. While many countries are not fully transparent with their gold holdings, there are exceptionally large discrepancies between what Chinese authorities say they have and independent assessments from trade groups and banks. In a September 2024 research document, Goldman Sachs said its estimates of the Chinese central bank's gold purchases have been in certain months as much as 60 tonnes higher than the central bank declared. Over the course of 2024, said gold analyst Jan Nieuwenhuijs at Money Metals, the People's Bank of China covertly bought 570 tonnes of gold, and it has now accumulated more than twice the gold it says it has. The scale of China's acquisitions is changing the gold market, Nieuwenhuijs told the Post. 'And the reason is that they really see the gold as an alternative to the dollar,' he said. The People's Bank of China did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, China's General Administration of Customs said it follows 'international conventions' on compiling and publishing information. 'China's gold import and export data is open and transparent,' it said. Given gold's strategic value, it's natural for China's holdings to be 'classified', said Zhao Qingming, an adjunct professor at the School of Finance of the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. 'No country openly discloses whether its gold reserves are acquired domestically or internationally, or how much is sourced from each channel,' Zhao said. The problem, researchers say, is that this lack of transparency increasingly conceals large quantities of gold that was mined illegally. Martin, a local gold miner in the village of Taliwang on Sumbawa, said he has watched warily as Chinese mining operators spread in nearby communities. 'If they enter here, we can't compete,' he said. Photo / Muhammad Fadli, The Washington Post Conservative estimates place the value of the illicit gold sector at more than US$30 billion or 400 tonnes a year. A study released in 2024 by the non-profit Swissaid found that gold smuggling out of Africa doubled between 2012 and 2022. Individually, unsanctioned mines may be smaller than legal ones. But aggregated over a country, over multiple countries – 'it's a massive, massive amount', said Pete Chirico, associate director of the US Geological Survey's Florence Bascom Geoscience Centre, which provides scientific assessments of resource extraction to the US government. Once smelted, illegal gold is virtually impossible to differentiate from legal gold – and equally as valuable to the world's biggest buyer. 'If you have a strategic interest in gold, you don't want to just rely on the industrial gold-mining sector,' Chirico said. 'You're trying to mop up gold wherever it is.' 'People's mining' Lalu Adimiyat, 40, looked out the window of a muddied Toyota SUV as it bumped along the pockmarked slopes of his village in eastern Indonesia. Stepping out into blustering winds, he caught the eye of a few local men peeking out from tented shafts. He nodded stiffly and turned away. It wasn't safe to stay long, he muttered. Chinese gold-mining investors began arriving here on Lombok island, an hour's boat ride from the holiday destination of Bali, in 2022, said Lalu, a community activist. In his village of Sekotong, locals had mined small amounts of gold for years, scaling the hills on motorbikes and using hand tools to scoop out gold-mottled ores that they sold to traders in the valleys. Indonesian workers move gold ore on the island of Sumbawa, where Chinese mining operators are becoming dominant. Photo / Muhammad Fadli, The Washington Post Indonesian authorities allowed this as long as it remained small-scale, providing permits to citizens for what is called in Indonesian 'tambang rakyat', or 'people's mining'. When Chinese investors came, however, they came with excavators, crushers and pumps that stunned local miners, Lalu recalled. The Chinese built their own processing facilities at the top of hills, installing sprinkler systems to douse ore with cyanide – a chemical that local miners had never used before. They brought in towering Chinese-made mills with rollers that spun 160 times a minute. Soon, Chinese investors were moving quantities of gold in a single day that would take locals months or even years to extract, Lalu said. 'We felt defeated,' he recalled. After several clashes, hostilities boiled over in August 2024 when villagers set a dormitory for Chinese miners on fire. National authorities arrived to find one of the biggest illegal gold mines ever uncovered in Indonesia – an operation that spread across the size of 184 American football fields, producing gold with an estimated market value of US$5.5 million per month. 'I never expected that,' remembered Dian Patria, 58, who inspected the site in October. A plain-speaking, moustachioed bureaucrat in Indonesia's anti-corruption commission, Dian said he has watched Chinese illicit networks spread across Indonesia, corrupting offices from village councils to national ministries, amid a broader expansion in Chinese investment. In the country's far-flung eastern provinces, which he oversees and where mineral deposits are concentrated, the most coveted prize has been gold. 'They are robbing us,' Dian lamented from his office in Jakarta. 'Openly.' Indonesian officials say they are aware of dozens of large-scale illegal gold-mining operations on Sumbawa. Photo / Muhammad Fadli, The Washington Post In previous decades, when American companies such as Newmont dominated gold mining in Indonesia, authorities could rely partly on US and international anti-corruption regulations, such as the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, to stave off excessive graft. Not so with Chinese operators, who face few barriers to engaging in corruption abroad, Dian said. Indonesia has stepped up efforts to find and prosecute illegal mining syndicates, earlier this year opening a law enforcement arm within its minerals ministry and increasing enforcement against cyanide smuggling rings. The bribing of officials, however, means that even when regulators believe they have found damning evidence, their superiors may not be inclined to prosecute, Dian said. Indonesian authorities have reported major illicit gold operations run by Chinese networks in at least four provinces over the past year. None have led to convictions. In one case in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, authorities found a mine that stretched over 1.5km and employed as many as 80 people. Chinese nationals were brought to trial but then abruptly acquitted – a decision that the Indonesian Judicial Commission later said was marred by ethical breaches and misconduct by judges. In June, one of the Chinese defendants still in Indonesia was retried and given a sentence of three years in prison and a fine of US$1.8m. Haruki Agustina, director of climate change mitigation at the Indonesian Environment Ministry, said she thought the punishment was insufficient given the mine's damage to the environment, particularly with regard to the unregulated use of cyanide. 'Way, way too low,' she said in an interview. Villagers have long fished on Lake Lebo in Taliwang. Now, they say it is becoming contaminated with chemicals like mercury and cyanide from illegal gold mines. Photo / Muhammad Fadli, The Washington Post On Lombok, internal Indonesian government documents obtained by the Post say the illegal mine in Sekotong encroached into protected forest area, and operations were carried out by three companies – two led by Chinese nationals and one by Indonesians – none of which had the requisite permits. In addition, the documents say, there are dozens more illicit mines on Lombok and its neighbouring islands that the Government is aware of. The Sekotong investigation, which was handed over to police last year, has stalled, said a senior official at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, adding that the reasons have not been shared with the ministry. The police did not respond to requests for comment. When Post reporters visited Sekotong in May, the police lines set up last year had been torn down. Trucks brimming with gold ore trundled along cliff edges, and the mines appeared operational. Lalu sucked his teeth as he raised his phone to take a video. 'No, no, no accountability,' he said. Beijing's 'plundering' In January, hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo demonstrated against what they called the 'plundering' of the country's gold by Chinese operators. Asked about the demonstrations, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, said, 'The Chinese Government always asks Chinese citizens and companies overseas to strictly observe local laws and regulations.' Officials in gold-rich countries, however, say Beijing has done little to enforce that sentiment. Chinese authorities have been unco-operative in efforts to identify and deter Chinese nationals responsible for illicit gold mining, according to international investigators and officials in Ghana and Indonesia. Chinese authorities have also withheld data that could help quantify and track illicit gold flows, and are noticeably absent from multilateral discussions on the topic, researchers say. In May, for example, at the 2025 OECD conference on responsible mineral supply chains in Paris – widely seen as the most important annual forum on the topic – a small Chinese delegation spoke about industrial mining but did not participate in discussions on illicit flows, attendees said. In these conversations, 'China is the missing elephant in the room', said Guillaume de Brier, a researcher at the International Peace Information Service, a Belgium-based institute focused on mining in the African Great Lakes region. 'We talk about them,' he said. 'They are not there.' Futile resistance Indonesian villagers on Sumbawa have done artisanal mining for decades, using hand tools to extract and refine gold. Photo / Muhammad Fadli, The Washington Post Artisanal mining in the village of Lantung dates back decades, locals say. But large-scale mining only began three years ago, when a middle-aged Chinese man known to villagers as 'Mr Xi' began striking deals with smallholders to dig on their land. He promised compensation that did not materialise, villagers said. But attempts to protest have had little effect. Runoff from the gaping pits on the mountaintops is killing crops. Every week, it seems, cattle downstream of the mine's cyanide pools drop dead, locals say. 'Everything you see here, that hill and that hill and that one. … Everything you see that is stripped land is the Chinese,' said Sabuddin, a local villager. Wearing a long-sleeved shirt that hung loose on his scrawny frame, Sabuddin, 49, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, stood perched on a jagged bluff. He said he did 'rakyat' mining, working with a hammer and pickax. He dug sometimes in areas like this one, which Chinese operators had excavated and then abandoned, Sabuddin said. But he had never mined for the Chinese. 'They work illegally,' he explained. 'I don't want to be involved in all that.' Yet, looking across the jungles he'd trekked through as a boy, he sometimes felt a sense of awe at the scale of the Chinese operation, he said. He pointed out a building with zinc roofs on the opposing crag – a dormitory for workers who guard the illicit mine. Even when night falls, the lights in those buildings don't turn off, he said. The crushers keep whirring; the excavators keep inching forward. Locals couldn't run an operation like this, Sabuddin said. 'No,' he continued. 'Only the Chinese.'
NZ Herald
2 days ago
- NZ Herald
Passengers wait at Waitemata Station as trains suspended
Wayne Brown pitches reward of Chinese meal for submitting on annual plan Auckland mayor Wayne Brown asked Aucklanders to submit on its annual plan for the chance to win a meal with him at Dragonboat Restaurant - which has now gone into liquidation.
1News
2 days ago
- 1News
Are Auckland's competitive Asian supermarkets the new model?
Retail grocery store owners in Auckland are feeling the squeeze after stiff competition has tightened margins following the arrival of several large Asian supermarkets over the past 12 months. Described by the Commerce Commission as New Zealand's "largest one-stop Asian supermarket", Foodie opened in Westgate on August 29, 2024. The store spanned 3800 square metres and offered a wide selection of products from China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia, catering to the city's growing Asian communities. Around the same time, Asian supermarket chain Tai Ping opened a new branch in Henderson on August 24. LianHua launched its flagship supermarket store on Auckland's North Shore in November — followed by the opening of Medol in Mt Wellington in June. The recent surge in large Asian supermarket openings in Auckland has expanded options for consumers. At the same time, it has also intensified competition between operators, leaving some business owners feeling mounting pressures to stay profitable. Golden Apple, which opened its first grocery outlet in Henderson in 2015 followed by a second on the North Shore in 2023, is among those feeling the pinch. William Zhong, manager of Golden Apple, said sales at the Henderson location had fallen sharply since the opening of Foodie and Tai Ping's new stores in the same suburb. "My business really struggled from the end of last year through the beginning of this year," he said. Zhong said Golden Apple's core customer base is predominantly Asian, with Chinese shoppers making up the majority. He said the store's North Shore location is performing much better than the Henderson branch, largely due to demographics. "About 60% to 70% of our customers on the North Shore are Chinese," he said. "Whereas in Henderson, it's only around 40%." Zhong said Auckland's Chinese population was growing rapidly but the number of Asian supermarkets was expanding at an even faster pace. He said customers generally preferred to shop close to home, which meant that an oversupply of Asian supermarkets in a single suburb could exceed demand, making it difficult for businesses to remain profitable. "Right now, many of Auckland's best Asian supermarkets are concentrated in West Auckland, particularly in Henderson and Westgate," he said. Four large Asian supermarkets in the area – Foodie, Tai Ping, Golden Apple and SMART – were located a few kilometres from each other, he said. "We all feel the pressure," he said. "The market is not big, but there are more and more Asian supermarkets opening here." Zhong said the economic downturn in many sectors in New Zealand had prompted many Chinese investors to enter the grocery business, believing supermarkets were the best place to make money – especially given their strong performance and status as essential businesses that were allowed to operate during the Covid-19 lockdowns. He believed this trend helped to accelerate the boom in Asian supermarkets across Auckland. Zhong said his focus now was on continuing to provide high-quality products and excellent service to his core customer base, and he was pleased that many customers who had stopped shopping at Golden Apple's Henderson store were gradually returning. He said competition among Asian supermarkets in Auckland was likely to intensify over the next few years, potentially leading to a shake-up in the market. "Some supermarkets will survive," he said. "But those that can't will eventually have to close their doors." Chengde Liu, owner of E-PACS Supermart, admitted to feeling the same pressure. After immigrating from Singapore to New Zealand in the 1980s, Liu opened E-PACS in the Auckland suburb of East Tāmaki in 2000, specialising in offering vegetarian and Malaysian/Singaporean food for the migrant community. Liu said the number of Asian supermarkets and grocery stores in Auckland at the time could be counted on one hand. Tai Ping, Lim Chhour, Soung Yueen and Tofu Shop were among a handful of places where migrants regularly went to buy food that contained the flavour of home and maintain ties to their cultural roots. He said the growing number of Asian migrants had contributed directly to the expansion of the grocery sector in Auckland. Liu's strategy was to stand out by offering a specialised range of products aimed at targeted customers. "Eighty per cent of our products are vegetarian foods," he said. "This is our strength, and the core advantage that allows us to survive." In addition to serving Malaysian and Singaporean foods, Liu said the store had expanded its offerings to include products from Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Taiwan in an effort to attract customers from different backgrounds. Tao Shi, managing director of Foodie, said weekday foot traffic had remained steady at around 2000 to 3000 customers since opening. Foot traffic typically doubled on weekends. Shi said Foodie's gross turnover dipped for about three weeks from late November to early December – a period before Christmas he described as a typical "quiet season" for the grocery sector. "Sales dropped around 10% to 20% during those three weeks," he said. "That was really stressful for us." However, he said sales had bounced back this year and performed well in the last quarter. "The gross turnover in the June quarter increased 15% compared with the March quarter," he said. Shi said Foodie did not aim to compete directly with other Asian supermarkets, adding it offered a unique shopping experience that allowed customers the opportunity to purchase daily essentials at one location instead of visiting multiple stores. He believed all Asian supermarkets share the same goal of expanding and growing their customer base. "I don't think it's competition," he said. "We [Asian supermarkets] can work together to make ourselves more mainstream. "We should advocate for attracting more non-Asian customers to shop [in Asian supermarkets]. We are not here to serve only Asian customers." After a year in operation, Shi said most of Foodie's customers remained Asian, particularly those from Chinese, South Korean, Filipino and Indian communities. During public and school holidays, however, non-Asian shoppers made up nearly half of the store's foot traffic. Shi said market demand was driving the rapid growth of Asian supermarkets in Auckland, adding options for shoppers, including more competitive food prices. "Some products do have competitive prices," he said. "We get fresh produce directly from farms, so we can keep prices a little lower for customers." Shi said Foodie is planning to open at least three to five new branches in Auckland, and potentially outside the city. "We do have the ambition to build Foodie as a national brand," he said. "That's our long-term goal. "But it's still too early to say. After all, we have only one store now, so we will take it one step at a time and serve every customer well." Stats NZ's latest data shows that retail sales value for supermarkets and grocery stores stood at $26.31 billion in 2023, rising to $27.08 billion in 2024. Meanwhile, food prices increased 4.6% in the 12 months to June 30, following a 4.4% rise in the year to May 31. The Commerce Commission's 2024 Annual Grocery Report, released on August 6, said Auckland's major supermarkets held 71% of the market, compared with 88% in the rest of the country. The report said barriers to entry for new competitors remained high, and the major supermarkets continued to wield significant power over smaller suppliers. While consumers in Auckland and other major cities have a range of options, those in smaller towns and rural areas often have little to no choice, with some stores in small towns operating as local monopolies. "Auckland continues to be a hub for the entry and expansion of specialist grocery retailers," a Commerce Commission spokesperson said. "Major supermarkets have a significantly lower market share in Auckland compared with other regions, partly due to the presence of more specialist grocery retailers, like Asian stores. "This is driving higher levels of competition and choice that benefit consumers and is something we would like to see across the country."
