AUGUST 2025
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Global thinking
T HE Himalayan Foundation is one of many causes and communities that Grove Juice supports. The foundation focuses on sustainable improvements in education, health and environmental conservation across Nepal, Bhutan and the Indian Himalaya. It’s a two-way relationship, with Grove investing money in those regions and bringing workers from Nepal and Bhutan to Australia. Nepal, a predominantly agrarian country with a population of about 30 million people, represents a “perfect” opportunity, says Grove’s owner Dick Estens. “That is a growing part of our business, we find the relationship fantastic and it’s a privilege for us to employ these people,” adds managing director Greg Quinn. This is part of a broader international community Grove is building in Australia, which includes welcoming 23 workers from Vanuatu each year, bringing in experts from South Africa, and workers from Korea, Indonesia and India. Quinn (pictured) says this global recruitment effort has also been born out of necessity. He describes governments as “pretty hopeless” in enticing people to work in Australia. Grove also supports Foodbank, Second Bite, Moree on a Plate and the Yamma Ganu Gallery. The company also ensures its growers are engaged in these initiatives. “We get them tied into what we’re doing, whether it’s how we’re changing our brand, how we’re going to market, or our work with our causes, we keep them abreast ... because it’s important to them.”
An aerial view of Grove Juice’s expansive orchards near Moree in northwest NSW.
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another 300,000 trees on order and plans to develop a further 500 hectares. I T’S a patient process but part of a deliberate long-term strategy, says managing director Greg Quinn, who joined Grove in 2023 after a career in agri-investment, including a stint at PwC, where he worked on some of the nation’s biggest agribusiness deals. For Quinn, the expansion is as much about sustainability as it is about growth. “The left arm can’t move significantly quicker than the right arm, otherwise you get totally out of sync and you have massive supply chain issues, massive consumer issues and massive quality issues,” says Quinn. The new plantings will position Grove to meet rising demand at home and abroad. With global juice stocks tightening, Quinn believes Australia is well placed to fill the gap. “There’s a global juice and global valencia orange shortage coming out of Florida and Brazil … so there’s going to be a great opportunity for juice into the global market out of Australia,” he says. Brazil has long dominated citrus production, but its output is now under strain. Estens sees an opening for Australia to assert itself – just as Brazil has done with cotton. “The Brazilians are now giving us a hiding on cotton growing,” Estens says. “They’ve probably taken $50-$100 a bale out of the market. We’re going to give them a hiding on the citrus production side.” Processing about 90,000 tonnes of fruit annually, Grove runs a tight farm-to-consumer operation. At Moree, machine-harvested oranges are loaded straight on to B- doubles or road trains bound for the company’s Warwick processing plant. Within days, the fruit is juiced, bottled and on shelves at Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Costco, independent grocers and leading food service outlets. “Whether it’s going to retail or food service, it’ll be in the market and consumers’ hands within days,” Quinn says. “It’s the same with apples from Stanthorpe.” Grove produces about 50 million litres of juice each year, with exports primarily to New Zealand and China. At present, harvest runs from May to December but new citrus varieties will soon extend that window, allowing picking to
begin as early as March. “It’s a huge asset in our own right,” Estens says. “It virtually gives us a continual supply of fresh juice for nine months, and anything we can harvest in December can carry us through into mid-February.” Vertical integration underpins that efficiency. By focusing on juice rather than table fruit, Grove can machine- harvest, cutting picking costs by about 50 per cent, Estens estimates. Water efficiency is another edge. Citrus delivers at least six times the return per megalitre compared with cotton, while using less than half the water. At orchard maturity, Estens says, citrus can average returns of $2000 per megalitre, compared with $300-$350 for cotton. In comparison to almonds, citrus “leaves the nut industry for dead for water efficiency”, Estens adds. Overseeing Grove’s Moree citrus operations is Craig Estens, general manager at Vitonga Farms – the Grove Group’s farming arm – which also manages rotational cash crops such as cotton, barley and sorghum. “When you throw everything Craig is doing into the juice business and across the supply chain, at the end of the day, if the consumer buys a bottle today, they expect when they buy that same bottle of juice next week, it’s going to taste
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