Southern shoppers will have to wait to fill their own containers at supermarket chains.
On Monday Foodstuffs, which owns New World, Pak'n Save and Four Square supermarkets, announced it would allow bring-your-own containers at its North Island stores from June 1.
Customers can fill vessels brought from home at seafood, bakery and deli areas, but not at bulk bins, as they are unstaffed and containers cannot be weighed.
Foodstuffs NZ head of external relations Antoinette Laird said it would be monitoring customer response to the initiative in the North Island and make a call about further rollout ''down the track''.
''Given that Foodstuffs is made up of two New Zealand-owned co-operatives, from time to time the two co-ops try out different initiatives to see how they work, gauge customer feedback and how we might roll them out nationwide.''
South Island stores had since last year been introducing misters for vegetables so they did not need plastic packaging.
Bring-your-own containers needed to be trialled to insure customers' groceries were not compromised through poor hygiene, she said.
Countdown safety and sustainability corporate affairs general manager Kiri Hannifin said it was ''working on'' introducing bring-your-own containers to its stores.
She did not say when they might be available in southern supermarkets.
''Food safety is a top priority for us ... and we will announce our plans in due course.
''We're trialling produce misting systems ... on fruit and veges, we're looking at changes in the deli to reduce plastic and are trialling different bag options in bakery.''
