To strengthen the resilience of its store network, the co-operative used Resilience Explorer® to answer an important question: where should it invest first to achieve the greatest resilience benefit for its communities and its business?

About Foodstuffs South Island

Foodstuffs South Island operates a geographically dispersed network of supermarkets and wholesale facilities across the South Island of New Zealand. Proudly 100% Kiwi-owned and operated, the co-operative has almost 200 PAK'nSAVE, New World, Four Square and On the Spot stores serving the South Island, from Golden Bay to Stewart Island.

The challenge

Historically, resilience decisions often relied on individual hazard assessments, many internal data sets, local knowledge, and lessons learned after an event. While valuable, these approaches made it difficult to consistently compare risks across dozens of locations facing different hazard profiles. FSSI needed a way to view its entire store network through a single lens, understand where the greatest vulnerabilities existed, and prioritise investments based on evidence rather than assumptions.

Seeing the Full Picture

Using Resilience Explorer®, Foodstuffs South Island integrated its store network with a range of natural hazard and infrastructure datasets to better understand current and future risks.

Interactive mapping and risk analysis provide a clear picture of:

• Which stores face the highest natural hazard exposure

• Which communities are most dependent on a store following an emergency

• Where loss of electricity or communications could significantly affect operations

• Which facilities are most critical to maintaining South Island food supply continuity

Turning Analysis into Action

The greatest value of Resilience Explorer® has been its ability to support practical investment decisions.

One of FSSI's key resilience programmes involves the installation of backup generators and Starlink satellite communication systems across parts of its network.

"Resilience Explorer has helped us focus our conversations on where resilience investments will have the greatest impact. Instead of debating where to start, we can quickly identify priority locations and concentrate our effort on making informed decisions."

Vanessa Jones, Emergency Management Business Partner, Foodstuffs South Island

By combining local operational knowledge with advanced spatial risk analysis in Resilience Explorer®, Foodstuffs South Island is moving from reactive resilience planning to proactive, evidence-based decision-making.

Strategic Value

Today, Resilience Explorer® plays an important role in helping Foodstuffs South Island:

• Prioritise generator installations across the store network

• Identify locations where Starlink connectivity delivers the greatest resilience benefit

• Improve business continuity planning

• Support capital investment decisions with defensible evidence

• Strengthen the resilience of communities that rely on Foodstuffs stores during emergencies

Looking Ahead

This work reflects FSSI's long-standing commitment to being at the heart of its communities, helping to make the South Island a better place, today and for many generations to come.