The team here at HUNTERhunter are huge fans of everything local and when it comes to our shopping habits, we love promoting our region on all the things we can get our hands on right here in Newcastle. So, when we stumbled across the covid-born business, An Apple A Day, we just could not wait to share their story with you.

Brought to you by adopted local couple, Shereen and Caleb Morris, An Apple A Day is Newcastle’s newest fresh fruit and veggie box business boasting an incredible selection of fresh food and from one of the bubbliest teams we’ve ever come across.

Shereen with her background in Paediatric Physiotherapy and Caleb coming from a sales and marketing background, the pair combined their love of fresh produce, focus on good health and wellbeing, and their community-minded vibes to bring Newcastle a brand-new offering over lockdown. 

“I’ve always been an avid lover of fresh, quality fruit and veg. With a background in health, I understand the importance of nurturing and fuelling the body with the right nutrition. With this knowledge, I have always searched for the best produce with the greatest value for money,” Shereen shared.

After moving to Newcastle and securing their roots, it was in 2016 when Shereen began a small fruit and veg collective with a group of 15 local families who all enjoyed the benefit of bulk buying together for over four years!

Once COVID hit Newcastle in early 2020, it seemed the perfect time for the duo to launch their own business and within the week, An Apple A Day was live!

The local business is currently operating out of a beautiful little space in Mayfield, where customers drop by to pick up their pre-ordered goods. The space oozes welcoming community-minded vibes with all the produce picked up from Sandgate Markets that same morning.

“We hope to start working directly with local growers in the near future.”

As expected, the local business’ offers four sizes of fruit and veg boxes (tiny, small, large, or jumbo), alongside the options of choosing additional fruit, vegetables, and green. Shoppers can also select from a range of fresh herbs and aromatics, eggs, coffee, honey, and organic pantry items.

“We carefully select fresh and seasonal produce each week. We include weekly staples and have other produce on a 2–4-week rotation. We have over 50 varieties of fruit and veggies in our rotation so you can be sure there will be variety week to week and between seasons.”

The local business has also collaborated with Marco Schmutz, a Thai-inspired chef from Conscious Flow to bring An Apple A Day customers his range of ready-made dressings, curry sauces, and curry pastes. To make things even better, the team also stocks an extensive range of organic, vegan pantry items by The Pantry Newy; making it an ideal one-stop-shop!

If you’re still doing your usual fruit and veg pick-up from the major supermarkets, here’s why you should consider making the switch to An Apple A Day.

“Quality – the quality of our produce is noticeably different to the produce you will find at the big supermarkets. This is noticeable in the taste, texture, wax coats, water content, and time the produce stays fresh once stored in the customer’s fridge.

“Sustainability – we place a high emphasis on reuseable packaging across the board. This means we are reusing the packaging that the produce is supplied in. Most fruit and veg has their own natural protective barrier, so we are baffled when the big supermarkets want to add additional plastic packaging!

“Community/Local - we love to see familiar faces each week and greet our customers by name.

“Price – the majority of the produce is cheaper than retail as well as being fresher!

“Value Add – we are progressively trying to provide quality information and education to our consumers through daily social media posts and weekly email newsletters. This is an attempt to empower the consumer to become confident in the kitchen and use their boxes as inspiration.

“Swaps Box – we have a swaps box available for customers to utilise on pick up. If there’s something in the box you don’t like or don’t need, you can swap it for anything else in the swaps box!”

To get you even more excited about shopping with An Apple A Day, the team have just launched their incredible yet limited Christmas Hamper offerings.

The 2021 Hampers will include summer fruit, in-house smoked chilli salt, in-house smoked olives, dukkah, spiced apple mixer, Middle Eastern spice mix, Moroccan spice mix, fennel, and herb spice mix, Christmas bliss balls, Bahen and Co Chocolate, Goose on the Loose salami, Leogate Wine, Orangic Tamburlaine Wine, and cold brew coffee by Serious Deliria.

Shopping with An Apple A Day, customers can choose from local delivery around Mayfield and surrounding suburbs (Tuesday and Friday), or to Beresfield, Thornton, and Fern Bay (Fridays). If you’re keen to organise pick-up, you won’t be disappointed by dropping by their Drive-thru, contactless spot in Mayfield.

Becoming so popular since its inception just last year, this local business is quickly outgrowing their little hole-in-the-wall space so make sure to watch this space to find out where their next retail space will pop-up!

Need any more incentive? Customers can join the Pay It Forward tribe when they place an order with An Apple A Day! Partnering with four charities Headspace, Neami National, Wesley Mission, and Newpin Uniting, this local business aims to supply fresh fruit and veggie boxes for people that are doing it tough across Newcastle.

“We are constantly blown away by how giving our community is and receive anywhere between $500-$1500 in donations per month. To date, a total of 209 boxes with a value of $7380 has been gifted to Novocastrians in need.”

So, what exactly are you waiting for? Do yourself a favour and check out this feel-good local, community-minded business and do your shopping differently or drop by this weekend's Olive Tree Market at Civic Park and explore the An Apple A Day range in person!