Sign in

Private company

DEKA

Defunct New Zealand general merchandise store chain

DEKA was a nationwide chain of general merchandise stores in New Zealand. It was launched in 1988 by L.D. Nathan, which split its supermarket and general merchandise divisions. In 1992 ownership of DEKA shifted to the Farmers Trading Company, which had until then been a competitor.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

  • Industryretail1

See how the biggest companies compare on our leaderboards

DEKA Store in Tauranga
Photo: ProtoKiwi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons4

DEKA was a nationwide chain of general merchandise stores in New Zealand. It was launched in 1988 by L.D. Nathan, which split its supermarket and general merchandise divisions. In 1992 ownership of DEKA shifted to the Farmers Trading Company, which had until then been a competitor. As a result of unsustainable financial losses, all DEKA stores were either closed or converted to Farmers stores in 2001.2

The story

In 1985 L.D. Nathan split their business into two separate divisions; supermarkets and general merchandise after acquiring the McKenzies general merchandise stores. In 1988 L.D Nathan rebranded their General Merchandise business (MaxiMart, Big City, Mark II) to DEKA, which launched with 90 stores (branded as either DEKA or DEKA-Maximart) The launch was supported with a large advertising campaign of print and TV advertising with the "I Feel Good" slogan, using the James Brown I Got You song. DEKA used the "I Feel Good" slogan until 1996.

DEKA joined with Farmers Trading Company in 1992 to create Farmers Deka Limited. 1996 saw the launch of DEKA's new slogan "You Know Where" which was later changed to "Better value, every day". By 2000 DEKA store numbers had reduced to 61 stores.

From Wikipedia’s article on DEKA (New Zealand), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4