Gonna try not to get too detailed. There’s ALOT of acquisitions and mergers here. Basically- a grocery chain from Nz swallowed up and acquired a bunch of other brands- including Woolworths NZ. Their parent is Woolworths AU, and these Woolworths have nothing to do with Woolworths UK or the US stores Woolworths. Still with me?
Woolworths NZ now owned a crap ton of super markets. They branded under the Woolworths corporate name; but not only were there potential marketing and other reasons not to change all the little different named stores they owned to one brand (a common one for example:- you might “hate” XYZ brand but not realize that “ABC” brand is the same company. You think you’re making a choice to go with a competitor but the money ends up on the sale place.) But also- it’s really expensive and disruptive to do that. Lots of new signs and bags and paint, uniforms and training and migrating employees from one company to an other and sooo much paper work.
So they decided to keep operating stores under their original names. When a new store opened or a store was up for remodel they’d brand it as Countdown. Stores with other brand names that already had a countdown near by were mostly just shit down and liquidated.
Tl:dr- a bunch of mergers left an NZ grocery chain owning the rights to a bunch of stores including Woolworths NZ and countdown. Woolworths is a brand name- and their parent company is Woolworths Australia- the exact business reasons why aren’t available to me- but for some combination of marketing and branding or a dart board- they chose the countdown brand and presented it is “Countdown by Woolworths.” The NZ Woolworths is not related to US or UK Woolworths- and as far as I can tell is not directly related to Woolworths AU except that Woolworth AU acquired Woolworth NZ.
BUT WHY?