[2] Foodstuffs operates over 400 retail stores as of 2020[update], and serves an estimated 3.6 million customers each week.

On 6 July 1922, Foodstuffs founder J Heaton Barker called together members of the Auckland Master Grocers' Association to discuss plans for the formation of a co-operative buying group.

[6] Later that year, Foodstuffs applied to the Commerce Commission to make an acquisition of The Warehouse in cooperation with Pacific Equity Partners.

[citation needed] In September 2017 Foodstuffs announced that they had a goal to stop selling cage eggs by 2027.

[12] However, the Commerce Commission blocked the merger in October 2024, stating that the buying power of the combined entity would be greater than what Foodstuffs North and South Island had individually, which would reduce competition and allow them to purchase from their suppliers at lower prices.

[13] In February 2024 Foodstuffs North Island began trialling facial recognition technology, in use since 2022, in Pak'nSave and New World stores to detect people who have previously been trespassed.

[14] The Privacy Commissioner has expressed concerns about the technology's rate of false matches, which occurs higher in people of colour and women.

[14][15] Four Square is a national chain of 225[16] small scale supermarkets that operate in both the North and South Islands.

The image is often closely associated with the art of New Zealand artist Dick Frizzell, who has used the iconic character in many of his works.

He immediately realised he had a suitable name for the buying group, stating that "they would stand 'Four Square' to all the winds that blew".

This process means that stores don't offer a wide variety of products as full-service supermarkets – a 2009 Consumer magazine survey noticed this especially in the pet food and toilet paper categories.

The chain sells a range of spirits, liqueurs, beer, wine, cider, ready-to-drinks and snack food, including confectionery.