Te Awamutu’s Countdown supermarket under construction

Construction has started at Countdown Te Awamutu. Photo / Jesse Wood

Construction has started on the Sloane St-based Countdown Te Awamutu in the lead-up to the Woolworths Supermarkets New Zealand rebrand.

Some of the new features will include a dedicated drive-up area for online customers to easily pick up orders, the introduction of electronic shelf labels, a new health foods aisle and a fresh and modern look and feel throughout the store.

Nationwide, the supermarket giant is spending $400 million on a transformation plan that will see the Countdown supermarkets rebrand back to Woolworths by early 2024.

In July, it was stated that the stores’ signage would start changing over the following months but the complete rebranding would take some time - with the entire network of 194 Countdown stores taking a couple of years to switch.

Woolworths New Zealand national development manager Matthew Grainger says the upgrade to the Te Awamutu store will finish before Christmas.

“As part of our transformation to become Woolworths Supermarkets NZ, and delivering New Zealand’s best supermarket experiences for customers and teams, we have started on an upgrade of our Te Awamutu store,” Grainger says.

The Countdown Te Awamutu store revamp is under way on Sloane St. Photo / Jesse Wood

“On completion of the project, the store will be rebranded Woolworths Te Awamutu, but customers will find much more than a new name - it will be a fresh new shopping experience with upgraded fresh produce, deli, bakery and seafood areas, additional self-checkouts and new aisles with a wider range of products on-shelf.

“This is an example of the kind of results our customers will see from the $400m we are investing in renewing and refreshing our stores to make them better and safer for local customers and for our team.

“Our investment is not in changing signage - it’s in modernising our stores to meet the needs of our communities across Aotearoa.”

Between 2009 and 2011, all Woolworths stores in New Zealand were rebranded to Countdown.

In Te Awamutu, it was an even larger project - the town got its second large-format supermarket following the development of Pak’n Save in Cambridge Rd.

It was the first large-format Countdown in Waipā, built on the existing site behind the previous store, which was able to continue operating.

That store was then demolished to make way for the new carpark, and on December 2, 2010, the new store opened.