Grocery shopping

Grocery shopping

Canned foods, first produced in the 19th century, have been an important convenience item for New Zealand cooks, despite an emphasis on home gardens and orchards for much of the 20th century.

These women are shopping at a Woolworths supermarket in 1964. The first outlet offering ‘one-stop’ shopping was probably the Four Square supermarket opened in Devonport, North Shore, by Bill Miller in 1957. Among the first supermarkets was the Foodtown 'all-convenience' store which opened in Ōtāhuhu in June 1958. It boasted 118 car-parking spaces.

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4 comments have been posted about Grocery shopping

What do you know?

Lisa

Posted: 25 Jul 2022

Hi. I'm doing some research on price of groceries and household items in 1950s but finding it extremely hard to find anything about NZ prices.
Can anyone help?

Gerald

Posted: 14 Jun 2019

Hi, I'm looking to research shopping in NZ. I have heard than in the 1960s there was legislation on what sorts of items could be sold on weekends and that there were political debates on what these items were. Apparently there were a certain number of items that were allowed only, and certain types of things were out. Unsliced bread was fine, sliced bread wasn't. I can't find any history on this, can someone tell me if there was a name for this i can look up?

Richard

Posted: 05 Nov 2018

I have a photo of a supermarket in Te Anau dated 1955

Neil Barker

Posted: 09 May 2013

The first one-stop Supermarket was opened by, Four Square member Bill Miller in Belmont, North Shore, on the 5th of November 1957, some 8 months ahead of Foodtown.