Foodstuffs recommends its supermarket owners require vaccination of staff

Monday, 10 January 2022

Foodstuffs supermarket owners will make their own decisions about vaccination requirements.

Foodstuffs has recommended its supermarkets require Covid-19 vaccination for staff but is leaving the decision up to individual owner-operators.

Consultation with staff about Foodstuffs’ Covid-19 health and safety policy is under way at its shops around the country. These include Pak’ n Save, New World, and Four Square.

Foodstuffs corporate affairs manager Emma Wooster said on Monday that its policy was that all staff at Foodstuffs sites would have to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

“The policy is being applied at Foodstuffs premises which includes support centre offices, distribution centres and transport depots and this will be applied during March,” Wooster said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, right, and MP Tracey McLellan are given products by New World Ferry Rd owner Simon Turnbull, where a vaccination pop-up was running in November.

* Countdown requires all 21,000 staff to be vaccinated by January 10

Wooster said because Foodstuffs supermarkets were individually owned it had not required them to enforce a vaccination policy.

Many Pak’ n Save owners are still deciding what to do about vaccine requirements.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield speaks to Stuff political editor Luke Malpass on New Zealand's first case of the Omicron variant.

“Local owner-operators will be making a decision about what roles are required to be performed by individuals who are vaccinated against Covid-19 within their respective New World, Pak’ n Save and Four Square stores,” Wooster said.

“We strongly recommend and encourage all roles in store are performed by vaccinated people.”

Owner of Wainoni Pak’ n Save Christchurch Marcel Gray said he would announce policy “in due course”.

From Monday all Countdown supermarket staff were required to be fully vaccinated.

Christchurch Pak’n Save shopper 75-year-old Linda Wilkins said she was surprised New World and Pak’ n Save did not have a similar rule.

“I’m very much in favour of vaccination and find it difficult to understand why someone wouldn’t get vaccinated against Covid-19 to be honest,' Wilkins said.

She said she felt it was irresponsible not to be vaccinated.

“If I had a choice I don’t think I would go to a supermarket where staff weren’t vaccinated actually,” Wilkins said.

“The track and trace system is good but the hand sanitising has fallen away with what seems to be an attitude of everything will be OK here in New Zealand and this concerns me.”