A New World supermarket has withdrawn a notice warning customers they will be fined for eating items before paying for them.

The notice outside its Queen St store in Auckland read: "Minimum $5 fine for eating unpaid items. Thanks."

The company's North Island head Chris Quin replied to the tweet with: "Think paying for product is sort of universal?"

"Perhaps, although the real issue is the theft occurring right? Would love that no signs were needed." he said.

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Foodstuffs, which also owns Pak 'n Save and Four Square has been contacted.

When asked for clarification on this policy, Quin said he would ask the store owner.

"But I would imagine they have had issues with unpaid consumption in store."

After criticism of the sign on Twitter, Quin tweeted on Wednesday morning that the sign had been pulled.

"Sign is gone, store will work on other ways to address theft, of course some people@do [sic] the right thing and pay, sadly a solid number consume and dump, when asked everyone says they intended to pay....it was clumsy but please consider why the store felt they had to try this".