Who are we?

Hi, we are Marianne and Maik. We grow stunning fresh fruit in our orchards in Esk Valley, Hawke’s Bay. Our main crops are mandarins, oranges and avocados. We also grow a few smaller crops like feijoas, limes, grapefruit, persimmons and macadamias.

We sell our produce at the Hawke’s Bay and Feilding Farmers Markets. Market visitors from all over the country have inspired us to start The Beeksbox – we get asked all the time if we could send our fruit to their homes all throughout the country.

So there you have it: Beeksbox.com, Hawke’s Bay on your doorstep.

Our Story

Having moved from The Netherlands to New Zealand in 2009 to pursue a more exciting life, we initially settled down in Auckland for the first 5 years. With a background in business management and human resources management Maik soon found himself in the same line of work he previously was in, so it’s fair to say that Auckland didn’t really deliver the lifestyle we were after. Marianne spent more time with our beautiful daughters and had a few interesting career changes (swim teacher and grad recruiter spring to mind), but Marianne longed for a life away from the city. A nice piece of rural land was high on the wish list.

Early 2014 something notable happened. Maik was sent to Napier to do a consulting job for the Port. Even though it wasn’t the first time we had visited Napier, this time around Napier made such a profound impact on the both of us that we realised that we hadn’t moved to the other side of the world to be stuck in a big city. This is when the search for a property in Hawke’s Bay started.

The rest really is a story of coincidences and opportunities seized. Marianne found the family their dream home in the Esk Valley, which just happened to be situated in a mandarin and orange orchard. Totally smitten with the idyllic home we didn’t realise what we had just bought ourselves; a productive orchard sitting on some of the most fertile alluvial soils in Hawke’s Bay – the old river bed of the Esk River – sheltered from the southerlies. Perfect growing conditions.

After a year in our new home and after having gone through the steep learning curve of becoming orchardists and fruit growers we decided the time was right to give our produce the exposure and brand it deserved. The Beeks Ltd was born. Beeks was Maik’s nick name in uni.

At the core of our new business would be a few important principles:

Grow the best produce the land can give us. We aim to only grow A-grade fruit – no seconds or juicing fruit here. No short-cuts.
We exclusively pick per order.
The shortest possible supply chain, which means that The Beeks Ltd doesn’t sell to wholesale – no middle-men here. Our fruit makes its way to the customer – whether on a farmers market, through one of our many service station outlets or through our web store – within 24 hours of being picked. It also means that we at The Beeks do all our distribution and logistics ourselves – The Beeks-van is a common sight in and around Hawke’s Bay and Manawatu.
All our produce is sold under our The Beeks brand. In order for us to lend our name to the fruit we are committed to produce and grade against the highest standards. We are proud of the quality of our produce, so we’re very happy for it to wear our name.

Today you can find The Beeks at the farmers markets in Napier, Hastings and Feilding. We also supply about 20 service stations throughout Hawke’s Bay and Manawatu with day-fresh fruit from our own orchards and from a few friendly Esk Valley & Bay View growers.

Being the parents of two privileged children, we enjoy working with a half a dozen schools around the region to ensure the kids get their daily dose of vitamin Esk Valley (it’s C, we know).

In the meantime we will do everything we can to keep up with the growing demand for our delicious fresh produce, without compromising our guiding principles.