Mary Devine, ONZM, is the Chief Executive Officer of Foodstuffs South Island, the co‑operative that owns and operates New World, PAK’nSAVE, Four Square, Trents, and Raeward Fresh across the South Island.

After a week of extreme weather across parts of the South Island, many communities have been reminded just how vulnerable they can be to disruption. For smaller, more remote towns, keeping essential services running isn’t always easy, especially when access is cut off or power goes down.

That’s why today’s opening of Foodstuffs South Island’s newest, most contemporary Four Square in Murchison is timely and why resilient infrastructure and strong community ties matter in regional New Zealand.

The turnout of people at the opening reflected the role our owner-operators, the Hocking family, have in their community with their family, friends and other South Island Four Square owner-operators there to see them cut the customary ribbon. This is a great intergenerational story with Richard and Liz, son Kim and daughter in- law Janelle, having owned the store since 2014.

Murchison is one of the South Island’s most remote communities. With about 600 residents nestled in the Tasman region of the upper South Island, it isn’t a place most retailers would choose to invest.

It provides vital food and essentials to locals who would otherwise have to drive more than an hour to another supermarket – this of course would have been a lot more difficult with the terrible weather impacts across the region over the last few weeks, so it’s exactly the kind of place we want to be.

Murchison Four Square is not alone in this regard – it’s one of 37 stores in our co-op that serve communities of less than 5000 people.This is what our South Island co-op is built for. For nearly 100 years, Foodstuffs South Island has been investing in a grocery network that reaches from Stewart Island to Collingwood. Together, our members operate stores in towns and cities of every size, sharing infrastructure, transport, and supply systems to make sure good food is available across the whole island, not just the bigger population centres.

That shared scale makes a difference. Our transport business drives around 150,000km a week to keep stores stocked – a task made more efficient and affordable by a co-operative approach.

We use an island-wide costing approach to ensure fairness in freight, so remote stores, and the communities they serve, aren’t penalised for their geography.

In urban areas, more choice might mean more competitive tension. But in the regions, the question is more complex. If we reduce the ability to share costs and infrastructure across geographies, it becomes harder to sustain stores in places where the economics are already finely balanced.

That’s why scale – used well and fairly – is important. It’s what helps us keep prices reasonable, maintain year-round service, and invest in small-town New Zealand.

Four Square Murchison is the latest chapter in a long story, one where local ownership, shared purpose, and regional resilience come together to deliver for the communities we’re proud to serve.