Safka Continental Goodies — Local services in Waitematā

Absolutely love this store! A little hidden gem in Auckland. It's not that hidden actually, very central and easy to find. I just didn't know about it until a friend mentioned it.

It'a a taste of home far away from home for me. They don't sell products made in my home country (no one does), but many of the products they sell are available in stores back home and are things I used to buy, so it's as close as it gets for me. Very happy to have access to familiar products and flavours from back home on the other side of the world.

I don't live in Auckland anymore, I am in Australia now, but every time I visit Auckland I pop into Safka as well. Have not stumbled upon a Scandinavian store in Sydney yet.

Sometimes I wonder how Safka manages to stay in business as I never see any other customers when I go, but whatever their secret is I'm glad it works.

As someone who is a huge fan of liquorice I like the selection Safka has. No one does liquorice better than Finland – Safka has the real deal, the good stuff straight from Finland. I also like to buy the black bread, Domino cookies (better than Oreos, in my opinion), Dumle candies, Marabou chocolates and many other things.

The only problem I've experienced so far is trying to reach customer service – email on their website didn't work, bounced back.

If you are ever in Auckland, you should pop into Safka, too. Or if you live in Auckland and are looking for Scandinavian food specifically, or just want to try...

The service here was exceptionally horrible. One of the $18.99 biscuit tins that my friend picked to give as a Christmas present was unsealed. She didn't notice it at the time and popped it in her shopping basket. Upon getting to the checkout, we noticed at the same time as the checkout operator, that the unsealed tin had opened and biscuits had fallen out into the shopping basket (the biscuits are loose in the tin).

She had two tins of these biscuits, one sealed and one unsealed. The man at the checkout claimed that she had 'broken' the biscuit tin by putting it on its side in the basket (even though the other sealed tin was also on its side). He essentially bullied her into buying it even though we tried to point out to him, multiple times that there was no seal around the edge of the tin, meaning, anyone who picked it up would have the same issue and she was not responsible. In the end, under his pressure she caved and bought the biscuits. Because she could no longer give them as a Christmas present we decided to try them and they were verging on stale..

In the end, what's done is done. However, It really isn't great to treat customers this way, the man was unapologetic and unwilling to talk to us at all on the matter. It was an awful experience and we won't...

I ordered some lingonberry jam, brown cheese and crisp bread. The lingonberry jam was because I received a jar of it as a souvenir gift and I loved it so much that I wanted more. I added the brown cheese and crisp bread in my order out of curiosity. I can’t say much about the cheese yet since I’m ill with the flu and can barely taste it but that crispbread is fantastic! What I love about it is when you bite into it, it stays intact and doesn’t shatter into crumbs. I’m so glad to have found this shop!

Delivery: each item was carefully packaged, the brown cheese was wrapped in an ice replacement gel. Delivery was pretty quick too, 2 days with posthaste. Would absolutely shop here again.

I’ve attached a photo of my snack I made right after...