A field trip to The Reduced to Clear Store in Rongotai

Yesterday I visited the Reduced to Clear Store in Rongotai.

This shop sells short-dated grocery items at a discount to normal retail. It’s been the subject of some controversy as health professionals see it as a source of even cheaper high-calorie/low-nutrient food. (I don’t really want to get into that debate, but on their website the picture they have chosen for “kids lunches” is hilarious — a lovely healthy sandwich and a piece of fruit, misleadingly illustrating a  list of starch and sugar-rich processed foods.) Anyway, I was hoping that they might have pantry staples that don’t spoil and so on.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I really like the concept, and I was hoping I’d see a somewhat supermarket-like range of dry goods. But the shop is quite small, and the range seemed limited, mostly to confectionary and packaged snack food of a low-grade sort. I did see some cheap sugar (can sugar spoil? I don’t think so) but it was not markedly cheaper than the cheapest sugar at Pak’N'Save up the road. The only useful basic thing I saw there was liquid laundry detergent.

It’s possible of course that they are ramping up and that in months to come there will be a bigger range with the kinds of things I’m interested it. Reduced to Clear have a good website which describes a bigger range than what I saw. I presume it’s what’s available in their Auckland branch. The website would be even better if it had prices on it. Woolworths have all their prices on their website, New World have their special prices listed — I’d hope that a feisty upstart whose proposition is that they are cheaper would have their prices available for me to check before I leave home too.

Right now, I wouldn’t go there unless I needed to cater a 5 year old’s birthday party in a hurry. But I’ll pop in again in a month or two and see what the shelves look like then.