WORK WITH THE EXPERTS.
SERVICES
Just Avocados is the only New Zealand avocado supply group who puts your orchard productivity and long-term profitability at the centre of the operation. We are also a one-stop-shop for all of your avocado orchard service requirements.
We focus on total crop profitability and take the time to understand our growers’ individual goals.
We grow, pack, and market – we understand every element of the avocado industry. Our team and the teams of our sister businesses and trusted partners can offer support, guidance, professional advice and physical assistance to help you develop a profitable and sustainable avocado orchard business.
In 2019, Just Avocados reviewed what we were trying to achieve for our growers and how we were going to set ourselves apart. Out of that came our focus on long-term profitability and business sustainability. Central to this is the overarching philosophy that harvesting 70% of crop prior to flowering is critical to tree health and return crop. Leaving fruit to hang late reduces pack outs, increases the chance of quality issues, and in many situations reduces the tree’s ability to produce consistent crops year-on-year.
For Just Avocados, this orchard management philosophy for long-term success is more than rhetoric—it’s a guiding principle that is demonstrated across our end-to-end service from production advice, orchard services, and harvesting, to logistics, packing, and market selection.
Ultimately, Just Avocados’ mission for success is clear: to ensure that grower outcomes remain paramount in all our endeavors today while building a sustainable future for tomorrow for the industry we proudly serve.
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SERVICES IN DETAIL
Browse through the topics below to find out more about what we do and how we do it. Also check out our orchard profiles and grower stories to see the results of a partnership with Just Avocados.
Our successful growers share a philosophy of crop load management, regular pruning, and managed nutrition as major influences on avocado tree health, return crop, long-term productivity, and orchard sustainability. Through our continuous improvement culture, our growers recognise that scale, innovation, and expertise are vital. They also understand the factors that contribute to their total crop profitability and how to own these.
We work alongside our growers to share knowledge about orchard management that becomes your own. Our focus on orchard health, productivity and profitability are at the centre of our programmes. We bring together new technology, meaningful data, research, and expert experience to deliver workshops, reading material, and timely intervention updates.
Our services include:
- Initial orchard assessment and advice for action to take.
- Programmes for every age and stage of trees from tree rehabilitation to production focus available in our member’s only online resource hub – Thrive.
- Following on from the above, we offer a full suite of resources covering all topics on avocado growing, including videos, in our member’s only online resource hub – Thrive.
- Full orchard management or leasing options using our team at Avoworks.
- Regular technical workshops and discussion groups which you can attend in person or view the video online when it suits you.
- Monthly technical updates delivered to your email inbox.
- Member’s only Facebook group for discussion with our community about orchard management.
- Contact and orchard check-ups by our growers services representatives.
Just Avocados is a Licensed Exporter of New Zealand avocados through the Horticultural Export Authority. Our international sales and marketing team operates inside our parent company Darling Group. This team is responsible for market selection, relationships with customers and arrangement of our yearly sales programmes. They also provide regular market updates to our growers through our e-bulletins and newsletters and a face-to-face season review.
Combining Darling Group’s New Zealand avocado business with its offshore trading activities means we are in the international markets all year on several product categories, not just as an exporter for the New Zealand avocado window. Our consistent customer interface allows us to maintain customer relationships, easily identify the best start and end period for Just Avocados’ supply, and quickly engage on opportunities when they are available.
In Australia, we have our people on the ground in the Brisbane markets through our sister company JH Leavy & Co. When exporting to Australia this provides our growers with the advantage of faster clearance once landed in market, up-to-date knowledge of market conditions, and control of the handling of your fruit, including costs, through to the customer.
Zeafruit, also within Darling Group ownership, handles the marketing of our domestic classes and is a New Zealand leading domestic marketer of avocados with direct relationships with the two major supermarket chains. Year after year Zeafruit is a top performer for returns from the domestic market.
We also have relationships internationally with processors for classes of fruit not able to be exported or sold domestically as fresh fruit.
Developing an orchard from a green field is an exciting project, a big investment and an awesome opportunity for you to ensure your trees get the best start to life and have a fruitful future. Our sister business Avoworks can help you from planning to planting – assessing site choice, planning your layout, financial modelling, site preparation, planting, protection, irrigation, and advice for the care of your young trees.
If you are looking to get into avocados and are assessing orchards for sale – talk to our grower services representatives about your needs and ask for our advice on anything you see potential in. Contact our team for more information.
Darling Group is a significant investor in large scale, high performing avocado orchards in New Zealand. If you are interested in finding out more please contact us using the contact form.
OUR SISTER BUSINESSES
“GREAT COMPANY. GREAT SERVICE, GOOD PEOPLE”
— Quinton Lankshear, Google Reviews
“…we believe our orchard wouldn’t be doing as well as it is now without the pre planting tech advice we had, and the ongoing tech advice! Thanks 😊”
— Mike Lea, Google Reviews
“…Everyone we have dealt with at JAL, and Avoworks, have gone out of their way to be helpful over the last year”
— Vicki Farr, Google Reviews