The rats are taking over the shelves. This map and timeline will be updated if and when new sightings occur.

In recent weeks, sightings of rats and mice in supermarkets have plagued New Zealand media. The little, and sometimes not so little, furry creatures are excellent at finding their way into anywhere there’s food, and are also excellent at contaminating it since they’re dirty and poo a lot. It’s not a newly acquired skill – rat sightings among food certainly predate the concept of supermarkets and duopolies and excess profits. Nor are rodents new to supermarket management, or exclusive to Dunedin. In 2019, Takanini Countdown had mice running wild and smelt like it; in 2021 Newtown Countdown said warm weather and a nearby demolition had led mice into their store; and just last year, Christchurch’s Eastgate Countdown, the location of the infamous potato salad, had mouse poo strewn around its boxes of Tasti Mega Nuts caramel muesli bars.

As of today, The Spinoff has dedicated a small team to tracking the rat and mice movements. Welcome to our live rodent radar.

January 25

The Otago Daily Times runs a photo of one rat, doubled by the magic of a mirror, peering from salami shelves at Dunedin South Countdown on the front page, under the headline “Staff relieved, inquiry begins”. The worker who provided the photo said it was taken in November, and that rats were first detected in the store in October. The photo seems to have captured the hearts and minds of New Zealanders, who have followed the plight of the supermarket rats closely.

January 25

At least one rat was “definitely living its best life in there”, said Dunedin South Countdown customer Tammy Ung to Checkpoint on RNZ. She was in the fruit and vege section when in the corner of her eye she saw a rat running through the wine bottles. On RNZ she said the rat was “at least, I’d say, 25cm long, and then tail on top of that. It was quite a decent size. Not a little baby rat at all.”

January 25 

The food safety deputy director-general said that MPI had received complaints about the rat problem at Dunedin South Countdown which prompted an investigation. Woolworths New Zealand, outed by its staff and customers, confirmed a recent increase of “pest activity” in the store. They said that a pest control contractor was making daily visits, and that cleaning procedures were being ramped up.

February 7

A tiny grey mouse was spotted and snapped in a bowl of potato salad in the deli section at Christchurch’s Eastgate Countdown. At the same supermarket nine months ago, in April 2023, another customer found mouse poo on the muesli bar shelves, especially around Tasti Mega Nuts caramel.

February 9

It was announced on February 9 that the Dunedin South Countdown branch where rats were first discovered in late January would be closed to allow for pest control measures. An additional pest controller was brought on site to help deal with the problem. The store’s original closure was supposed to be for 48 hours, but it was ultimately extended. At the time of writing this story (Valentines Day/February 14) it is still closed. 

February 10/11

Over the weekend pest controllers captured a further 13 rats at the Dunedin South Countdown while the store was closed for capturing, cleaning and monitoring. During the previous week four rodents were captured. An anonymous supermarket worker told RNZ that the issue had been going on for months and the store’s management had responded too slowly.

February 12

The Dunedin South Countdown remained closed on February 12 to undertake further pest control measures. Woolworths director of stores Jason Stockill said that two pest controllers were working on site with cameras and traps. New Zealand Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle confirmed that a further four rodents were caught in the store overnight, bringing the total number of rats captured to 20. 

February 13 

On the afternoon of February 13 at the same Dunedin South Countdown that has been under the rodent radar of late, Woolworths New Zealand’s director of stores Jason Stockill confirmed that a further two rats had been caught in the previous 24 hours. Adding to that, he claimed that a further four rats were caught on February 12. These recent rat captures bring the total number of rats caught in the Dunedin South branch since February 5 to a total of 23.

February 13

During a lunchtime shop at Pak’nSave on Lincoln Rd, a customer was disgusted when she saw a little mouse run from the bakery section to the shampoo aisle. She then helped a staff member catch the mouse in a box.

More to come.

New Zealanders send more than 295 million single-use cups to landfill each year. Here’s how one small community stamped out the habit – and got visitors on board too.

That even Ingrid Hipkiss’s household didn’t get it was a massive red flag. There had apparently been a years-old debate at the Morning Report host’s place as to whether the things were recyclable.

Signals coming from recycling and compost bins across the motu were no better – the question clearly confounds other sharp people too. The conclusion? Inescapable. New Zealanders simply don’t get the threat of the single use takeaway cup (SUC).

Made to look either recyclable or compostable, this ubiquitous everyday item is effectively neither. The plastic lining used to make them watertight rules them out on both counts. 

As Auckland Council’s general manager of waste solutions Parul Sood told Hipkiss when describing what can and can’t go in your recycling bin: “No coffee cups, EVER.”

Some SUCs claim to be compostable, but unless you have an industrial-grade composting system handy, they ain’t going to break down. There’s only one forever home for the SUC, and that’s the landfill, where they take between 20-30 years to decompose. 

When you factor in that New Zealanders use over 295 million single-use cups every year, you begin to see what a colossal one-fingered salute to Papatūānuku this all is. 

So what to do about this wolf in sheep’s clothing; this stealthy villain of the hot drink world? In mid-2023 a team of waste-busters on Aotea/Great Barrier decided something had to give and launched a plan to phase out SUCs altogether.

By October 1, if you wanted a takeaway hot drink on Aotea, you had three options: 1) Take your own keep cup 2) Use a mug from participating cafes’ mug libraries or 3) Purchase a $10 stainless-steel cup from an island-wide “borrow” scheme (which can then be returned to any outlet for a refund).

An island-wide “mug drive” saw hundreds of disused household mugs amassed for the cause.

“We’re lucky on Aotea because we’re small, so something like this is totally doable,” says Jo O’Reilly, director of the island’s resource recovery centre and driver of the scheme. “I’ve been so impressed by how enthusiastic the community is, from our retailers to our coffee drinkers.”

“It’s been a really easy transition for us,” says Pah Beach café’s Rochelle Winger. “What I love most about it is that if people forget their cups, they decide to sit in for their coffee, which brings back that precious cafe culture of catching up, slowing down and having good chats.”

Previously, Winger had experienced a crushing sense of guilt as she drove around the island and saw takeaway cups from her cafe discarded on the side of the road. “We owe it to our island to look after her. As caretakers, it’s our responsibility.”

Locals got right behind it. From tradies to farmers to toddlers to grandmas, islanders appeared to move seamlessly to a SUC-free world.

“It took a little bit to get used to it but we’re away now,” says longtime local Michelle Hartley-Scott. “I just keep a reusable cup in my car – use, wash, return and repeat.”

“It’s one of the things that makes Aotea great,” according to Aotea/Great Barrier Local Board member Chris Ollivier.

The challenge, however, was always going to be the thousands of tourists and visitors who flock to Aotea over summer – how would they react to the SUC rug being pulled out from under them? Café owners braced for a backlash, but it never eventuated. 

“Everyone has been absolutely amazing and totally understanding about it,” says Adrienne Bowler from Baked on Barrier. “It’s been a massive eye opener to so many people.”

“What most visitors to the island probably don’t realise is that every bit of landfill waste must get shipped back to the mainland at huge cost, because we no longer have a landfill here. We’re doing all we can to reduce those volumes,” says Jo O’Reilly.

Wānaka is also striving to be SUC-free, with 10 local cafes now onboard.

“We predict that since 2018, when we went SUC-free, we’ve saved 8,000 coffee cups each year from going to landfill,” says Liam from Cardrona Alpine Resort.

“We decided to do it because there was too much wastage,” says Sara from Fedeli. “We reckon we save about 100 cups a day. We want to change the way we think about plastic, and the way we think about waste altogether.”

O’Reilly says since the Aotea project kicked off, organisations from around the country have been in touch to learn more about how they can follow suit. “There’s a real desire for this in many communities. We’ve had meetings and shared information with people from Waiheke, Whitianga and Hamilton.”

As the island’s Steve Billingham puts it: “Could it be that single use cups are has-beans?”