Food Shopping

Grab your OneCard and ready your trundler, because you're coming along with me to Foodtown!

Foodtown (also known as Countdown and Woolworth's) is one of the major three supermarket chains in New Zealand. The others are New World (which is sort of a SuperFresh equivalent) and Pak `N Save (the Costco of New Zealand: lowest prices, huge quantities). Pretty much any town in New Zealand will have one or more of these supermarkets.

There are two such supermarkets close to me. There's a Countdown on Quay (pronouced "Key") Street across from the harbor (as pictured above), about a ten-minute walk from the central Britomart station, and a Foodtown on Dominion Road in the neighbo(u)rhood of Mt. Eden, about a 15 minute bus ride from my location. The Quay Street Countdown can be more of a pain to get to, especially when it's raining (in other words, almost always), but the prices are lower and the store is nicer, so it's worth the walk usually.

I visit the supermarket once or twice a week to stock up on bagels and other snack items. Shopping at Countdown isn't much different from the supermarkets at home, but there are always a few interesting things to be found amongst the aisles:

--They call shopping carts "trundlers" here. Must be a British thing.

--One of the biggest challenges can be converting the metric system to what makes sense to an American mind and the far inferior Imperial system. Math question: if apples are NZD $3.75 per kilo, what does that make them in $USD/pound? And kilograms are relatively easy--I have no clue how many ounces are in 150 grams.

--Terminology: Potato chips may or may not be called potato crisps, and french fries might be chips but they might also be fries. Cookies are definitely biscuits though, and they're all crunchy--no soft-baked varieties to be found here.

--Some things are surprisingly expensive, like paper towels and cheese. For someone whose meals at home often contain a bunch of cheese and dairy, I've pretty much cut most cheese out of my diet here. The dining hall almost never serves meals with cheese, and with the prevalence of Asian restaurants and food places, it's easy to survive without it.

--On that note, for reasons that I can't explain, plain cheese frozen pizzas are not made here. They all have meat toppings. Even at pizza shops, plain cheese pizza doesn't ever seem to be an option.

--Some things are unsurprisingly expensive, like Hershey's chocolate syrup. I came across a regular-sized bottle in a specialty store for over NZD$9.00.

--They have chicken-flavo(u)red potato chips/crisps. Yep.

Once you've got your groceries, it's time to check out. If you're a Kiwi, you're probably going to be paying with Eftpos. New Zealanders LOVE Eftpos, which is a proprietary debit card system found only around these parts of the world. You swipe your card, select "CHQ" (Chequing) or "SAV" (Savings) on the PIN pad, enter your PIN, and you're good to go.

US debit or credit cards only work on Eftpos terminals when using the "CRD" (Credit) option, and you have to sign--your PIN won't be recognized. I found this out the hard way on my first day here, as I tried in vain, jetlagged and tired out of my mind, to swipe several cards and enter my PIN at a sporting goods store as I tried to buy trainers (sneakers) to replace the crappy ones that fell apart during the flight. After I had finally figured out how to use the "CRD" option, the skeptical store clerk, who probably thought that I was either an idiot or had stolen the cards, handed me a two-foot long receipt (or "tax invoice") to sign, filled with "TRANSACTION DECLINED" notices.

You can find an Eftpos terminal in even the smallest and most obscure places here in New Zealand, and many of them do not accept credit, including my University's Business School bookshop (!!), rendering my US cards unusable. Therefore, I found a bank willing to open an account for me for four months, and I have my very own Eftpos card. I enjoy using it to pay for purchases after my accent has given me away as a foreigner, as if to show "Hey, look, I'm not just a tourist!" Invariably, however, I always seem to swipe the card with the stripe facing the wrong direction. So much for that.

After you've paid, grab your groceries in their nondescript, transparent plastic bags with no store logo on them, and take the free City Circuit bus back home (and by home, I mean a 10-minute uphill-both-ways walk to my residence hall). Congratulations! You've just shopped at Foodtown! Now enjoy your chicken-flavoured crisps.