Auntie Anne’s and Carvel Plan New Zealand Debut

Auntie Anne’s and Carvel are heading to New Zealand, with their first dual-brand store scheduled to open at Westfield Newmarket in September 2026. The move brings two more GoTo Foods brands into the country through Kathan Parikh, the franchisee who introduced Cinnabon to New Zealand in 2024.

Two brands join an existing franchise portfolio

Inside Retail New Zealand reported the expansion on 21 September, identifying pretzel brand Auntie Anne’s and soft serve ice cream brand Carvel as the latest additions to Parikh’s portfolio. Both belong to GoTo Foods, which also owns Cinnabon.

The Newmarket opening is therefore not a standalone arrival by an operator new to the parent company’s brands. It follows Parikh’s introduction of Cinnabon two years earlier and extends that relationship to two additional food offers.

For New Zealand’s franchise community, the central development is the combination of new brand entry and an existing franchisee’s portfolio expansion. Rather than announcing separate debut locations for Auntie Anne’s and Carvel, the plan brings the two together in one dual-brand store.

The report describes the Newmarket opening as taking place that month. It does not provide an exact opening day in the supplied material, so the announcement should be read as a scheduled debut rather than confirmation that the store has already begun trading.

Westgate plans bring three brands together

The next planned step is at Westgate, where preparations for another store were reported to be well advanced. That location is intended to combine Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s and Carvel on a single site.

According to Inside Retail, Westgate will be the first location outside the United States to bring all three brands together. That makes the proposed format a distinct part of the New Zealand expansion, rather than simply a repeat of the Newmarket pairing.

The distinction between the two locations matters. Newmarket is the announced dual-brand debut for Auntie Anne’s and Carvel, while Westgate is the planned three-brand location incorporating Cinnabon. The supplied report does not give a firm opening date for Westgate.

Nor does it set out the physical layout, staffing arrangements or service model for the combined site. Those details would be necessary before drawing conclusions about how the three-brand format will work in practice. What is established is the intended brand mix and the reported progress of planning.

Manawa Bay adds another planned opening

A Manawa Bay store is also due later in 2026, according to the same report. Together, the announcements identify three locations associated with the expansion: Westfield Newmarket, Westgate and Manawa Bay.

However, the supplied material does not specify which brands will feature at Manawa Bay. It would therefore be premature to describe it as another three-brand store or assume that it will follow the Newmarket format.

The timetable also needs to be kept in perspective. Newmarket has a stated opening month, Manawa Bay has a broader target of later in the year, and Westgate is described as having well-advanced plans. These are different levels of detail, not a complete, dated opening schedule.

For readers tracking new franchise brands, the next useful updates will be confirmation of actual opening dates and the brand line-up at each location. Those would clarify how the announced portfolio expansion translates into stores customers can visit.

What the announcement means for franchise readers

This is a specific operator-led expansion, not evidence on its own of wider market growth. The report provides no New Zealand sales figures, investment costs, store performance data or forecast customer numbers for the incoming brands.

It also does not announce opportunities for other New Zealand franchisees to acquire these stores or territories. Prospective operators should distinguish news of a brand’s arrival from an invitation to invest in it.

The practical takeaway: watch for confirmed openings and location-specific details. Anyone assessing a comparable multi-brand franchise should ask how brand rights, operating responsibilities and costs are allocated, rather than treating a shared parent company or combined storefront as proof of commercial success.