Plenty Foods promises to employ 40 staff, mostly from the local community. Photo: Supplied by Plenty Foods
The owner of a new, independent Upper Hutt supermarket hopes he can offer locals an alternative to the big supermarket duopoly.
Plenty Foods supermarket opened in Brewtown on Thursday, the second Hutt Valley store in the portfolio of Wellington businessman Henry Hutcheon, who also owns Supersave in Naenae.
Despite a few technical issues, Hutcheon told Nine to Noon the opening went well.
"Unfortunately, the database we had errored out first thing in the morning, so we had to basically rebuild our entire database of all the products we had on the shelves - which takes a lot of time."
Hutcheon said he would hire 40 staff to work at the store and he aimed to provide cheaper products for the community.
"We've hired most of our staff locally and we've got a lot of young people for the local workforce as well.
"We definitely will be working with community groups when they approach us - we will do everything in our power to make commodities cheaper and affordable for the locals."
Hutcheon said he started working in the industry as a checkout operator in 2007, worked in supermarkets around the Wellington region, and he and his partner later bought the Supersave convenience store.
He said starting an independent supermarket was challenging the current market.
"There's been some suppliers that have been willing to work really hard with us, there have been some that have taken a little bit of convincing and then there are some that have just proven to be very difficult," Hutcheon said.
"I guess the bigger they are, the harder they are to deal with us - some of them have been quite disappointing."
He said the supermarket aimed to stock "everything", including a full produce department, butchery, bakery, fish cabinet, a hot cabinet with chickens and a cafe.
He had developed a pie with CJ's Hangi, which the store would sell as well.
Upper Hutt mayor Peri Zee said it was great to see the supermarket stock local producers, including Dough Bakery products and The Pickery flowers.
"It's awesome to see that they are using local businesses, which is beneficial to the local economy overall."
She was encouraged to see a supermarket employing young people from the area and providing another option to compare prices.
"Having independently owned supermarkets is really helpful for that competition, because clearly, we have a competition problem in the supermarket sector.
"Having extra players come in is awesome and can be really helpful to reduce costs."
Brewtown was a growing brewery precinct in Upper Hutt, she said, which had developed over the past few years to include a Sunday farmers' market and event spaces.
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