Mini groceries created a frenzy at New World stores around the Bay yesterday, with thousands swarming the businesses to add to their Little Shop collections.
New World stores in Brookfield, Mount Maunganui, Gate Pa and Te Puke held Little Shop trade-ins from 3.30pm, allowing customers to bring in their extra mini grocery items to swap for the ones they needed to compete their collections.
The Little Shop promotion, which started on September 2, is part of New World's 50th birthday celebrations. For every $40 spent, customers received a toy-sized copy of one of 44 popular New Zealand grocery items, including Marmite, Watties' spaghetti and Tip Top icecream. The miniatures have become so popular people have taken to swapping and selling them online to get the whole set, with some full sets selling for hundreds of dollars.
There is already talk of a second series, but yesterday's crowd at Brookfield was focused on completing their current collections, with close to 400 lining up to take part over two hours. Staff at other stores also reported huge crowds.
The Brookfield store staff were forced to direct traffic away from the all ages crowd, which was so large it flooded into the carpark.