Hand-Picked, Home-Grown: The Fuller Feijoas Story

Brent and Philippa stand with their dog in a scenic orchard, surrounded by lush feijoa trees and rolling hills under a clear blue sky.

If you take a 20-minute drive inland from Napier, you’ll find Puetapu - rolling Hawke’s Bay country, crisp autumn mornings, and an orchard that’s become a bit of a feijoa destination. This is where Brent and Philippa Fuller grow “Fuller Feijoas”: a 10-acre feijoa orchard shaped by careful hands-on work and a real love for the fruit.

The Fullers’ feijoa story began in the simplest, most genuine way, by planting around 300 trees because they loved the taste and loved having them growing at home. Feijoas felt like the kind of tree that just belonged there: hardy, generous, and quietly rewarding. When a friend suggested they start selling their fruit, it planted a new kind of seed, one that turned a personal passion into something they could share with others, and from that moment the orchard began to grow, season by season, into what it is today.

Brent stand next to his Feijoa Orchard

Ask Brent and Philippa about the best part of the year and they’ll tell you feijoa season is hard to beat. Hawke’s Bay is a great place to grow feijoas, and the Fullers are quick to point out why. Cold winters and dry summers create conditions that suit the crop well, and the dryness can mean fewer pests and diseases.

Knowing when a feijoa is at its best is something the Fullers have built an eye for over time. They look for that whitish powdery bloom on the skin, and they’ll tell you the perfect fruit almost chooses you. When it’s ready, you touch it and it falls into your hand. That’s the sign it’s at peak readiness, and it’s the kind of simple moment that sums up what they love about the fruit.

Quality is where the Fullers really lean in, and their approach in the orchard is a big part of what sets their fruit apart. While many growers use nets and collect fruit after it drops, Brent and Philippa focus on hand-picking so the fruit doesn’t hit anything on the way down and bruise. It means more labour, but they believe it shows in the final eating quality.

At peak season, the flavour is what keeps people coming back. Brent describes it as completely unique, almost like eating a flower with a strong perfume- aromatic, distinctive, sometimes a little tart, and unlike anything else. It’s an autumn flavour through and through, and it’s the reason feijoa season feels like such a short, special window.

Feijoa fruits hanging on branches, adorned with fresh droplets, amidst lush green leaves.

When it comes to eating them, the Fullers keep it joyfully simple. Their favourite is a feijoa smoothie with ice cream- no fuss, just the fruit and that creamy sweetness, and they swear it’s unbeatable. In the middle of the season, they’ll eat them in what they call ridiculous quantities, with Brent joking that if he eats enough feijoas- 20 or 30 a day, he’ll stay healthy through winter.

Like many growers, they also know how quickly things can change. They were heavily impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle that hit just two weeks before harvest, when their pack house flooded to around a meter and a half and the orchard was fully submerged. In the weeks and months that followed, drainage was blocked with silt, and around a third of the orchard died from sitting in water for too long.

Brent and Philippa in their orchard with Zack, the MG's representative.

Through it all, Brent and Philippa have stayed grounded in what matters: growing great fruit, caring for their environment, and delivering feijoas they’re proud of. They enjoy the life in and around the orchard, especially the birds that help with pollination and add to the feeling that this is a place working with nature, not against it.

Ultimately, what they want most is simple. They want customers to feel happy knowing they’re getting quality fruit, to get that Vitamin C and antioxidant boost heading into winter, and to slow down long enough to savour feijoas for what they are- one of the best tastes of autumn, at its peak for only a short season.