Countdown: Platinum Sponsor of the 2020/21 Market Report
Grant Robinson, Merchandise Manager Produce, Countdown
Countdown is New Zealand's largest supermarket chain, operating over 180 stores and serving about three million customers every week. Countdown’s parent company, Woolworths New Zealand, employs more than 18,000 New Zealanders, making it one of the country’s largest private employers.
Countdown chose to support the OANZ 2020/21 New Zealand Organic Sector Market Report as a platinum sponsor. The Market Report explores the growth of the New Zealand organic market by capturing the current state of the domestic market across the entire supply chain.
Here, Grant Robinson, Merchandise Manager Produce at Countdown, shares his thoughts on Aotearoa’s growing organic market.
As a platinum sponsor, why is the market report so important?
The OANZ Market Report is important to us as it gives us invaluable insights into the organic industry in Aotearoa. It lets us know all of the things that are important to a large food retailer like us — how our customers have been shopping and the things they may want to shop for in the future — when it comes to organics, allowing us to build a produce-strategy that meets their demands.
How has the organic market changed for you over in recent years?
Over the last three years, we’ve had a strong focus on growing the number of organic products we have available — in large part due to the growing customer demand. By working directly with our growers, we’ve been able to not only improve our range of great quality organic produce but the availability and price, too.
Almost all of our produce is grown in New Zealand so we’re really keen to continue to work with local growers and farmers and increase our range of Macro Organic products and organic products as a whole.
Where do you think the organic market is heading and how do you plan to be a part of it?
At Countdown, “organic” is an increasingly important category in our stores and we have a key role to play in making sure organic produce is accessible and affordable for Kiwis looking to eat a little healthier.