New $100m Pak’nSave Highland Park supermarket opens this month

New Zealand’s biggest new supermarket is the $100 million Highland Park Pak’nSave, which is opening later this month.

A spokesman for developer Foodstuffs North Island said the 6391sq m East Auckland store would open at 7.30am on Tuesday February 25.

That is before the March date Foodstuffs North Island gave last winter.

The spokesman said more than 250 staff would work at the store and the recruitment process was “in full swing”.

“More than 200 job offers have been made so far,” he said.

The store is on a 2.09ha site at 503 Pakūranga Rd. It has 329 car parks and has risen beside an existing 4812sq m Woolworths.

Owner/operators are Wade and Diana Brown who are now on their third supermarket. They bought into the Foodstuffs North Island co-operative in 2013 via New World Kawerau in the Bay of Plenty.

In 2017, they bought New World Kumeū.

Wade Brown said opening the vast new store would be “a fantastic challenge and we’ve been working hard for months to ensure we deliver a really competitive offer”.

Diana Brown said they would be working with food rescue business Kiwi Harvest so unsold food which was still good to eat was not wasted.

The Foodstuffs spokesman said work was going according to plan.

“In terms of fit-out, the refrigeration and checkouts have been installed: 12 team member-operated checkouts and 14 self-checkouts. The racking and shelving are also in place with ambient groceries and non-perishables going on the shelves. There will be specialist departments for bakery, butchery, deli, produce and seafood,” he said.

Foodstuffs still has more than 450sq m of retail space for other shops and the spokesman said configurations were flexible so one to five separate premises could be created.

Last June, the Herald reported how the store will be one of the biggest for Foodstuffs North Island but was the largest now under construction.

Christchurch’s new Pak’nSave Papanui by Foodstuffs South Island is 6260sq m.

The single-level Highland Park building is on the prominent corner of Highland Park Dr and Aviemore Dr.

Retail and property general manager Lindsay Rowles said being a store of more than 6391sq m made a huge difference to how it would be stocked and operated.

“It means you have more on the floor in easier-to-handle ways. Instead of a layer of boxes, you put a pallet on the floor,” he said.

Shane Hartner’s Legacy Construction built the supermarket and worked on the neighbouring Woolworths where refurbishments were being carried out last year.

Rowles said the new Pak’nSave would have an innovative feature: an enclosed drive-through for click-and-collect shoppers, able to take six vehicles at a time, with food loaded into vehicles in that area.

Pak’nSave Highland Park

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.