PAK’nSAVE Wainoni opens to much support in the Eastern Suburbs
Antoinette Laird
It's taken four and a half years but Wainoni residents will now
have the opportunity to do their shopping in a brand new
supermarket with the new PAK'nSAVE Wainoni opening on Wednesday 19
August 2015.
Foodstuffs South Island Ltd is thrilled to announce that
Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel cut the ribbon and officially
opened the doors of the new store at 9am on the 19 August. Mayor
Dalziel was the MP of the Eastern Suburbs at the time of the
earthquakes and throughout the rebuild has continued to offer her
full support to the PAK'nSAVE Wainoni rebuild efforts and
Foodstuffs commitment to continuing to trade in the original
store.
The new store is part of Foodstuffs South Island Ltd's continued
promise to Christchurch's heavily impacted eastern suburbs and the
investment of over $40 million in the store rebuild came at a time
where it was imperative the business kept the old store operational
and meeting the supermarket needs of the community. The completion
of the new store helps guarantee approximately 300 jobs in the
eastern suburbs.
Owner-operator Marcel Gray says, "Keeping the old store
operational while we built the new supermarket has been really
important both for staff who needed the ongoing job security and
for the community which had been through so much upheaval after the
earthquakes. It feels like we can finally move on and move forward
after the earthquakes. The old store feels like an embattled old
ship, she's been through a lot and now it's time to retire her to
the scrap yard. Both the staff and I are excited to be in the new
store and able to give our customers the best PAK'nSAVE supermarket
shopping experience we can."
"A special word of thanks needs to go to our insurance brokers,
Crombie Lockwood, and our insurer, NZI, who were instrumental in
agreeing to our plan to continue trading through the rebuild.
Without their support we would have been looking at a two year
closure," says Gray. "Not a prospect any of us were comfortable
with."
Roger Davidson, General Manager Property and Retail Development,
Foodstuffs South Island Ltd says, "The store build hasn't been
without its challenges, construction issues due to the land quality
meant significant reinforcing, cost and time. PAK'nSAVE Wainoni has
3,500 stone columns supporting the store, the columns were drilled
over the course of 12 months by two drilling rigs which worked 12
hours per day to get the job completed. It's my understanding that
PAK'nSAVE Wainoni has more piles supporting it than any other
building in the country, it's a pretty spectacular engineering
feat."
"Thanks also need to go to Fletchers Building and Powell Fenwick
Consultants Ltd, a local Christchurch engineering firm, for the
hard work and dedication to delivering a solid building on land
that provided plenty of challenges," adds Davidson.
The new store is 500 sqm larger than the previous store at 6,400
sqm and when completed will have over 400 customer car parks.
Foodstuffs ongoing commitment to sustainability can be seen
throughout the store which has plenty of natural light, LED
lighting, CO2 refrigeration, and is part of the nationwide
Foodstuffs waste management programme which works to reduce the
stores overall environmental footprint.
Gray confirms that, "Customers will continue to get the great
service and prices they are used to at PAK'nSAVE Wainoni, but the
overall shopping experience promises to be so much better. From the
fresh produce and meat, to the deli and bakery with fresh pizzas
made on demand, a large dedicated seafood market and the new Sticky
Café with coffee to go - we are really looking forward to giving
our customers the great service they associate with the PAK'nSAVE
Wainoni team.
There were a couple of days where customers had to manage
without PAK'nSAVE Wainoni, as Gray confirms that the existing store
closed at 8pm on Sunday 16 August. This meant the store was closed
for two days as the team transitioned all the stock across to the
new store for the scheduled opening on Wednesday 19 August.
"We appreciate this was an inconvenience for some of our loyal
customers but it was a necessity as we transitioned from the old to
new store," says Gray. "Customer communications were well planned
to ensure inconvenience was kept to a minimum and I'm pleased to
say customers were very supportive of us during the
transition."
