Tom Ah Chee

Ah Chee was born on 4 January 1928 in Remuera, Auckland, New Zealand, the second child of Clement Calliope Ah Chee, a New Zealand-born Chinese, and his wife May Yuk Doo. His father was a grocer, working in the family business established by Chan Dah Chee, Tom's grandfather, who had emigrated to New Zealand in 1867. The original family name was Chan, but his grandfather's misspelled first name, Ah Chee, was made his legal surname upon his immigration. The business, Ah Chee and Company, was the largest trading company of its kind in the early 1920s but collapsed in 1931 due to the Great Depression. Clement Ah Chee took his family to China, where the children were educated. In 1939, the Ah Chees returned to New Zealand, following the Japanese occupation of Canton.

The Ah Chees opened a produce store in Newmarket, on Broadway, its main thoroughfare, with a second store on Great South Road. Tom Ah Chee resumed his education, despite not initially speaking English. He went to Remuera Primary School and, soon gaining proficiency in the language, then went onto Seddon Memorial Technical College, where he studied industrial science and bookkeeping. While studying he also worked at the family store. In 1951, following the death of his father, Ah Chee took over the business. This entailed him abandoning his tertiary studies; he was studying architecture at Auckland University College at the time.

On 25 September 1954, Ah Chee married Molly Gee at St Luke's Presbyterian Church, Remuera. The couple went on to have four daughters.

Ah Chee stepped down from Foodtown in 1980 and retired altogether two years later. By this time, the annual revenue of Progressive Enterprises was NZ$200,000,000. He retained shares in the company although these were sold a few years later. In his retirement, Ah Chee acted as a mentor for Chinese in the region. In his final years he developed liver cancer and this led to his death on 18 March 2000. He was buried at Purewa Cemetery in Meadowbank. In 2002, Chee was posthumously inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame. Ah Chee's wife, Molly Ah Chee, died in 2025.

After Ah Chee departed the company, Foodtown and Georgie Pie continued expand over the next few years. Georgie Pie, having a network of 32 restaurants at its maximum, encountered financial difficulties in the 1990s and was sold in 1996 to McDonalds. It ceased operations two years later. Foodtown had over 30 supermarkets by 2008 but the brand's identity was lost in 2009 when Progressive Enterprises rebranded their stores as Countdown supermarkets.