Mōrena, Nau Mai, Kia Ora Koutou: Countdown customers 'shop smarter' this week

Countdown customers will learn the te reo translations for some of their favourite everyday items while they shop this week as part of Māori Language Week 2013.

Countdown is proud to celebrate Māori Language Week for a third year, and from today customers will see 38 different food categories in Māori, promoting awareness and knowledge of the language.

Nau mai ki Countdown and Welcome to Countdown will be the first message shoppers will see when they come into stores over the next week. As part of the theme, informational booklets will be available showing how some of our most well-known place names are pronounced – among them: “Mutter Mutter” (Matamata), “Toe Paw” (Taupo) and “Tucker Puna” (Takapuna).

“With 166 stores nationwide and more than 18,500 people employed in our team, we host Kiwi shoppers every day. Traditional Maori names for cities and towns are all around us, but there’s plenty of room for us to improve our pronunciation, and to go beyond this with other everyday phrases”, says Dave Chambers, Managing Director at Countdown.

“We’re proud to support Māori Language Week again and help integrate and use this unique language more and more. Through this support we look forward to fostering greater understanding of te reo into the future,” says Mr Chambers.