Customers continue to pour in the door at what’s billed New Zealand’s largest Asian supermarket.
They come to the $20 million Foodie Asian Supermarket at 33-47 Northside Drive (next to Mega Mitre 10 Westgate), open from 8.30am to 8pm, for a wide variety of products under the one roof.
The 3800 square metre store near Costco Fuel and the Bargain Chemist Westgate has more than 200 carparks – full the day we went shopping there.
Checkout queues were long but didn’t deter most shoppers – we were after a couple of cans of items you don’t usually see in normal supermarkets, but the Foodie Asian Supermarket also has six in-store vendors such as Oceanz Seafood, a butchery, bakery, a roast duck vendor, a Korean lunch bar and a Chinese deli takeaway shop.
Foodie Asian Supermarket Managing Director Tao Shi says Foodie Co. has leased the building for about 30 years.
The site and building is owned by NZ Retail Property Group (NZRPG) with Tao a director along with NZRPG owner Mark Gunton, Taiquan Wu and John Garelja of former Garelja Bros strawberry growers’ fame whose farm was where Mitre 10 Mega Westgate now is.
Tao expects trade to remain brisk at the new Foodie Asian Supermarket, which has more than 30 staff, and he says thousands of customers have already been through its doors.
He had previously run a wholesale fresh produce business for 12 years while business partner Taiquan Wu had operated an international produce trading business.
Tao came to New Zealand from China 20 years ago and Taiquan about 21 years ago and they plan to open more Foodie supermarkets in Auckland.
The Foodie Asian Supermarket is also near the Taco Bell, KFC, Carl’s Jr and Starbucks outlets with drive-throughs, and a planned Tesla site.