Yogiji's Food Mart on Hutt Road is Petone's Indian super market — a full South Asian pantry rather than a corner shop with a token spice shelf. The ranges run deep: close to 500 packed spices, nearly 500 packaged snacks, almost 300 biscuits and khari, 59 basmati rice lines, and dedicated sections for atta and flours, lentils, ghee and oils, and 273 pickles, chutneys, sauces and pastes. Beyond the Indian staples there are 257 Sri Lankan and 59 Nepali products, making this a genuinely pan-South-Asian grocery.
It goes well beyond food, too. A 547-line cosmetics section, 81 puja items, agarbathi and dhoop, seasonal stock for Rakhi and Diwali, 15 pressure cookers and 102 utensils fill the non-grocery side, while 68 bulk loose bins let shoppers buy nuts and dry fruits in exactly the quantity they need. Instant mixes (167 lines) and ready-to-eat packs (64) cover the nights when cooking from scratch isn't happening.
The same catalogue is shoppable online at yogijis.co.nz, with category search, wishlist and customer accounts — handy for planning a visit or restocking from home. Whether you're after a specific mukhwas, a 10kg sack of chakki atta or something sweet from the chikki shelf, it's the kind of store where one errand easily becomes a full trolley.
On Hutt Road in Petone — the bayside suburb at the southern end of the Hutt Valley — Yogiji's Food Mart does exactly what its sign promises: it is an Indian super market, and a deep one. This is not a corner shop with a token spice shelf. It is a full South Asian pantry, with thousands of products ranging from the completely everyday to the genuinely hard-to-find, whether that's a 10-kilogram bag of chakki atta, a particular style of papad, or a jar of pickle you won't see in mainstream supermarkets.
The store's centre of gravity is unmistakably the Indian home kitchen. Packed spices run to nearly 500 lines — whole spices, ground spices and branded masala blends such as Everest's Chicken Biryani Masala. Beside them sit the staples that turn spices into dinner: 24 atta lines, 117 packed flours, 134 packed lentils and dry fruits, 88 ghees and oils, and 50 kinds of jaggery and sugar. Rice gets its own real estate, with 59 basmati options from everyday bags to premium 1121 grain, plus a dedicated 66-line South Indian rice range.
Around that core, the flavour-makers multiply: 273 pickles, chutneys, sauces and pastes, and 76 lines of papad, fryums and khichiya. For busy weeks there are 167 instant mixes and 64 ready-to-eat options.
If the spice shelves are the store's heart, the snack range is its personality. Nearly 500 packaged snacks share floor space with 299 biscuits and khari — Britannia's Good Day cashew and pista-almond cookies and Parle Monaco are fixtures — plus 72 kinds of chips, 154 lollies, 42 chikki and gajjak sweets, and 17 lines of khakra, mathri and bhakri. There are 177 mukhwas, the after-meal mouth fresheners no proper Indian pantry goes without, and a mamra and poha section of 44 puffed and flattened rice products, makhana included. Roasted chana, tin peanuts, tin-packed sweets, vermicelli and 112 beverages — family-size Frooti mango drink among them — fill out the picture.
Yogiji's reaches past one border. A dedicated Sri Lankan range of 257 products makes this a serious stop for Sri Lankan cooking, and 59 Nepali products do the same for Nepali kitchens. Between the regional Indian ranges and these neighbours, it functions as a pan-South-Asian grocery rather than a single-cuisine shop.
Plenty of what's here isn't food at all. Cosmetics form the largest single category in the store at 547 products. There are 81 puja items for home worship, agarbathi and dhoop, and seasonal festival stock — Rakhi around Raksha Bandhan, Diwali goods ahead of the festival of lights. The kitchen department covers 15 pressure cookers and 102 lines of utensils. For shoppers who want exactly the quantity they need, 68 bulk loose bins hold nuts and dry fruits, whole almonds included.
The store's featured and daily best-seller boards revolve around a familiar cast: Everest Chicken Biryani Masala in its 50-gram box, 10-kilogram sacks of Aashirvaad Chakki Atta, Kashish Premium 1121 basmati in 5-kilogram bags, Britannia Good Day cookies, Parle Monaco biscuits, Frooti mango drink and Keshhav Bhog Makhana. It's the profile of a store that serves people cooking real Indian meals through the week, not just browsers after a novelty snack.
The shelves are mirrored online at yogijis.co.nz, where the full catalogue is searchable by category, with a cart, wishlist and customer accounts for regulars — and a standing Sale section worth checking before a big restock. In person, you'll find the store at 56 Hutt Rd, Petone.
One practical tip: with a catalogue this size, it pays to skim the categories online before you visit and arrive with a list — then leave room in the trolley for the things you didn't plan for, because there will be some.