Avoca Beach Friendly Grocer

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Avoca Beach Friendly Grocer No self-checkouts and right near the beach. Pop in and say Hi!

Locally owned and proudly stocked—
Fresh local produce, local eggs, groceries, staples, beach-day snacks and those tempting $2 lolly bags (because some things should just never change)!

15/10/2026

🍌 WHERE HAVE ALL THE BANANAS GONE?! 🍌

If you’ve noticed bananas looking a little greener than usual or disappearing from supermarket shelves altogether, you’re not imagining things!

Welcome back to another weekly market update from our little grocer doing things differently in Avoca Beach! 🥭🍓

We’ve got some beautiful finds this week, but first, a little insight into what’s happening in the fresh produce world!

🍌 WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH BANANAS?

Australia’s banana supply is experiencing a bit of a squeeze, with cooler and wetter conditions in Far North Queensland slowing production and affecting the availability of ripe fruit.

Queensland grows the vast majority of Australia’s bananas, so when growing conditions change up north, we feel the effects all the way down here in NSW!

That’s why you might be noticing empty shelves or unusually green bananas in stores at the moment.

The good news is that supply should gradually improve as growing conditions become more favourable. In the meantime, we’re doing our best to keep good-quality bananas available for our customers!

🍓 IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW! 🥭

Our weekly market videos might make it look like we’ve opened an entire fruit shop, but there’s a little more happening behind the scenes! 😂

We’re still your little beachside grocer, just with a serious passion for exceptional fresh produce!

Each week, we bring together our beautiful market finds for filming before carefully storing everything in our cool room and rotating it through our fresh produce section as customers shop.

And these days, we’re replenishing that little display almost every half hour! 🤯

We’ve built a wonderful following of loyal customers who have discovered the difference in what we’re sourcing.

They know when something special comes through the markets, it’s worth popping down for!

Whether it’s an incredible new-season variety, fruit from a boutique grower or something you rarely see on supermarket shelves, our regulars have become pretty good at spotting the good stuff! 👀

We’re not just filling shelves. We’re giving people a reason to get excited about fresh food again.

And if you’re new around here, welcome! Now you’re in on it too! ❤️

🎁 OUR FREE GIVEAWAY IS COMING!

Remember that little giveaway we teased last week?

We’re getting closer to announcing the details!

Soon, you’ll be able to spend a certain amount in store and receive a fantastic FREE gift, with three different options to choose from!

Keep an eye on our upcoming videos because we’ll be revealing exactly how you can get your hands on one! 🎁

❤️ THANK YOU, AVOCA BEACH!

Whether you’re popping in for your everyday essentials or coming down specifically to discover what we’ve found at the markets, every visit supports our little independent grocer and allows us to keep doing things differently.

We absolutely love seeing how excited our community has become about beautiful fresh produce!

📍 Avoca Beach Friendly Grocer

🥭 Tell us, what’s been your favourite market discovery from our little shop so far? 🍓

10/10/2026

🎁 FREE GIVEAWAY incoming… and you’ll want to keep an eye on our page for this one 👀

We’ve got something planned for the coming weeks: spend a certain amount in store and get one of these goodies completely FREE. We’ll reveal the details soon, so keep watching!

And there’s even more in store than you’ll see in this week’s market update. 🍓🥥 Our giant Heavenly premium strawberries are back, and we’ve just landed Coco Thumb drinkable coconuts too. Crack one open, pop in a straw and enjoy fresh coconut water straight from the coconut.

🌱 A little market education: as the seasons shift, so do the varieties coming through Flemington. That’s one of our favourite parts of buying this way. We can move with the season, compare growers and varieties, taste what’s coming through and choose what we think is eating best right now.

This week that means beautiful new-season local zucchini, crisp sweet grapes, and a switch to the larger Lakeland Panama passionfruit after trying them and loving the flavour and juice.

We’re not tied to buying the same line from the same supplier every week. If something better comes through the market, that’s what we want on our shelves.

Fresh from Sydney Markets and on the shelves now at Avoca Beach Friendly Grocer 🍓🍇🥑🥥

Now, about that giveaway… which of the three would you choose? 👀🎁

04/10/2026

If you haven’t discovered this little grocer in Avoca Beach yet… this might be your sign 🍓🍫

Today Valli and I put our current favourite strawberries to a very important test: dipped in chocolate. 😂

These are the WA Heavenly strawberries, and they are definitely not your everyday punnet. They come in a huge 500g premium punnet, packed with big, beautiful fruit.

And here’s a little fun fact about what makes them so special. They’re an Albion strawberry, grown by the Lieu family just north of Perth. The plants actually produce fewer strawberries and the fruit is left on the plant longer, giving the sugars more time to develop. The Heavenly team even Brix-tests the fruit for sweetness and hand-selects the berries that make the grade. 🍓

Basically, exactly the kind of unusual, premium produce we love hunting down at the markets.

And who better to help with the official chocolate-dipped taste test than Valli. ❤️

If you’ve been into our shop before, there’s a very good chance you already know her. Valli has been part of our little team for four years now and is one of those people who brings such a positive attitude to work. She’s a familiar, friendly face behind the counter and a genuinely valued part of Avoca Beach Friendly Grocer.

We also thought our brand-new mural made a pretty good backdrop for the taste test. 🌿🍓 If you haven’t seen it in person yet, come past and have a look!

So… are strawberries better dipped in chocolate, or are the really good ones best left alone? 👀


02/10/2026

👀 There’s a little grocer in Avoca Beach doing things a bit differently…

We don’t head to the markets looking for the same everyday fruit and veg going to the big shops. We’re looking for the small boutique growers, the short seasons, the unusual varieties and those beautiful export-quality lines that only turn up in small quantities. And sometimes we’ll happily take a little less margin ourselves if it means you get to try something bigger, better or genuinely special without the crazy price tag.

This morning was a pretty good example. 🍓

There was a bit of a frenzy around the Heavenly strawberries from WA, and we managed to get our hands on a small number. They’re an Albion variety grown by the Lieu family north of Perth, hand-picked and packed, with fruit sampled for Brix (sugar) levels to make sure it meets the Heavenly standard. And some of them are HUGE. 😂

Our funny-looking Summerinas are back too. 🍊 Don’t judge them by their skin! That bumpy outside is part of the variety. They’re naturally seedless, easy to peel, super juicy and one of the last mandarins of the season, with only a short window around October and November.

And yes, this was market trip number TWO this week. 😂 We headed back again this morning to load up for the long weekend, with our pre-ordered pineapples, passionfruit, raspberries and plenty more making their way back to Avoca.

You might have noticed something else is looking a little different too… 👀

We filmed this week’s update out the front because Andy is SO close to finishing our new mural. We’ve loved watching everyone stop, have a look and tell us what they think as it’s taken shape. ❤️

So if you’re from elsewhere on the Central Coast and haven’t discovered our little grocer in Avoca yet, come and see what we’re up to.

And our locals… who’s already seen the new wall in person? 👀

30/09/2026

Something’s happening out the front… 👀🎨

If you’ve been past today, you might already know what we’re up to! We’ve had so many lovely comments already and it’s only just getting started. Watch to the end for a little peek 👀

🍊 I told you I had a trick up my sleeve for the Sumos!
Meet the Summerina. Sweet, juicy, seedless and easy to peel, this Aussie-bred mandarin comes into its own just as our beloved Sumos finish up. They’ve got a short season, so enjoy them while they’re here!

🍍 And this isn’t our only market run this week. We’re heading back Friday for the long-weekend haul, with our pre-ordered pineapples waiting for us, plus more passionfruit, raspberries and a few other goodies.

School holidays are here, the long weekend is coming, and you’ve already managed to clean us out of bananas AND avocados once this week 😂

Now, who’s already seen what’s happening out the front, and what do you think so far? 🎨💚

23/09/2026

🍇 Grapes are back… but why are the first good ones coming all the way from the Northern Territory?

Australia’s grape season follows the warmth, and right now the early-season fruit is beginning up north before the season progressively moves into the major southern growing regions. This week we managed to get our hands on some beautiful Australian Sweet Globe™ green seedless grapes from the NT.

And these aren’t just any green grapes. Sweet Globe™ is a specially bred, licensed variety, selected for its large berries, sweetness and that really firm, crisp crunch. Exactly what we were waiting for before putting grapes back on our shelf. 🍇👌

There’s plenty of change happening across the fruit shop this week. Our beloved Sumo mandarins have officially come to an end 😢, but Golden Nuggets are eating beautifully and taking their place for now.

Passionfruit lovers also get a good week. We’ve got our OPA12s back, plus another small drop of those beautiful Lakeland passionfruit. They have that distinctive sweet, almost floral eating quality, but they don’t come through consistently, so we grabbed two boxes while we could.

🍓 Three different strawberry options this week
🍍 Double the pineapples after you loved them last week
🥑 Beautiful avocados that we’ll keep rotating through for different stages of ripeness
🍉 And apparently we’re now throwing watermelons at Amelia for quality control 😂

There’s also something happening out the front of the shop… 👀 Keep an eye on that over the next week.

Lots changing, lots arriving, and another very good week to eat seasonally. 💚

Thanks, as always, for supporting your little local grocer.

16/09/2026

🍍 If you’ve been waiting for a pineapple to turn yellow before cutting it… you might want to watch this week’s Fresh Update. 👀

One of the best parts of going to the markets ourselves is that we’re not just finding beautiful produce, we’re constantly learning about it too, and this morning came with a few lessons worth sharing!

Our strawberries are starting their seasonal move across to Western Australian fruit 🍓 and they’re looking incredible. We’ve also kept our beautiful Queensland Tramacchi strawberries alongside them (with a little price drop this week 🙌), so you can choose your favourite.

But there are two things we wouldn’t wait too long for…

❤️ Those premium raspberries are back, but only in limited numbers. We’ve put them alongside our everyday raspberries so you can actually see the difference for yourself.

🍍 And the pineapples! We could smell these through the skin. Something we learnt at the markets today: pineapples don’t continue getting sweeter once they’ve been picked. Waiting for a green pineapple to turn yellow at home doesn’t increase its sweetness. These have been picked ready to eat, and they smell incredible.

You’ll also spot some seriously impressive OPA12 passionfruit this week. We’ve deliberately bought the larger 45-count fruit because sometimes the better choice for us isn’t necessarily the one with the biggest margin, it’s the one we think gives our customers the better eating experience. 💚

That’s really what these early market mornings are about for us: finding great produce, learning more about it, and bringing the best we can find back to Avoca.

Thank you, as always, for getting behind what we’re doing. Seeing you come back for something you discovered here the week before makes those early mornings very worthwhile. 🥰

📍 Avoca Beach Friendly Grocer

P.S. Keep an eye on the front of the shop next week… something fun is happening. 👀🌿

09/09/2026

🍊🍓 WEDNESDAY MARKET UPDATE!

The Gold Nuggets have finally landed! 🍊 We’ve been hearing about these for weeks at the markets, with sellers telling us to keep an eye out based on how good they’ve been in previous seasons… so naturally we grabbed a couple of trays when they appeared this morning 😂

They’re a late-season mandarin, known for being exceptionally sweet with a low acidity and virtually seedless. And that rough, bumpy skin? Completely normal for a Gold Nugget. Definitely a don’t judge a book by its cover situation! 🍊

Our Sumos are still going strong too, so for the citrus lovers it’s a good week to try the two side-by-side and pick a favourite.

🍎 Missile apple season has wrapped up, but we know lots of you loved them specifically for that little lunchbox-friendly size. We found mini Pink Ladies this morning that fill that gap perfectly. Same handy little size, with that familiar Pink Lady crunch.

🍉Watermelons are starting to come in so ask the friendly staff and we will cut you a quarter fresh from the back coolroom!

🫐 We’re also starting to see the winter-to-spring changeover at the markets. Berry supply is building, Australian asparagus has started, and over the next few weeks we’ll start seeing more of those warmer-weather lines coming through. One of the best parts of shopping the markets each week is being able to change what we bring home as the seasons change.

And Cara Caras are still going 🍊 If you haven’t tried one yet, they’re naturally pink-fleshed navels with a sweeter, lower-acid flavour than your typical orange. They won’t be around forever, so enjoy them while they’re still coming through!

We’ll also have a little passionfruit comparison for you later this week 👀 There’s an interesting story behind the different sizes you see for sale and why we’ve been deliberately choosing those BIG ones lately.

And finally… keep watching the page. 👀

We have a pretty generous GIVEAWAY coming to say thank you for all the support you guys have been giving us lately ❤️

See you down at Avoca Beach Friendly Grocer! 🍓🥕🍊

04/09/2026

Just for the Dads… 🍓 THE TRAMACCHI STRAWBERRIES ARE BACK! 🍓

And this time we managed to get our hands on a few extra trays for Father’s Day weekend, sitting alongside our beautiful Ashberns.

Last time we had the Tramachhis, we noticed something interesting. Despite the price difference, so many of you still reached straight for them. And when you see the two side by side, you can see why people are curious. That incredible deep red colour! 😍

We’re pretty fussy about strawberries in general. We’re sick of those supermarket strawberries that look red enough from the outside, then you bite into them and they’re hard, mostly white inside and taste like… not much.. OR they’re mouldy 😂

So we have two GOOD strawberry options.

🍓 Ashbern – beautiful quality, sweet strawberries and our everyday pick.

🍓 Tramachhi – the splurge. Deep red, beautiful eating and something a little bit special from a boutique farm in QLD.

🌱 AND AUSTRALIAN ASPARAGUS HAS BEGUN!

Now THIS feels like spring.

Australian asparagus starts coming into season around September, with the main Australian crop running through spring. One of those little seasonal changes we love seeing at the markets.

💜 Lakeland Panama + our giant OPA12 passionfruit

A little insight into why some of our fruit is… unnecessarily enormous. 😂

A box of passionfruit is generally sold as a box, and the number on the side tells you how many pieces are packed inside.

So if a retailer sells passionfruit individually, the sensible business decision is pretty obvious: buy the box with MORE pieces in it.

A 70 count gives you 70 passionfruit to sell.

We deliberately buy 45–55 counts.

That means we can be buying 20–25 fewer pieces of fruit compared to the fruit shop down the road, simply because we want the big ones.

It makes less sense on paper. But we’re not choosing them because they’re the most profitable size. We choose them because there is something ridiculously fun about taking home a passionfruit the size of a small planet, cutting it open and seeing what’s inside. 😂 We weighed one in at 235 grams!

We want coming into our little grocer to occasionally give you something you wouldn’t normally find elsewhere.

And we do exactly the same thing with our Sumo mandarins. 🍊

There are smaller Sumos with 20+ pieces packed into a tray, and there are huge 14–16 count fruit.

Guess which ones we chase. 😂

Fewer pieces to sell from each tray, but a MUCH more impressive Sumo.

Sometimes the experience wins over the spreadsheet.

Also around the shop this weekend…

🥬 Baby cos twin packs are BACK by request

🥒 Baby Qukes are BACK by request and this warmer weather makes them the perfect crunchy snack

🥦 Beautiful Australian Broccolini

🫐 Betty Blues blueberries

🍎 Missile apples are officially finished! That’s it for this season. We loved having these little guys while they lasted. See you next season right?

💐 And there are plenty of flowers around the shop this weekend. The wildflowers are starting to come through and some of them actually have that beautiful floral aroma again.

Thank you, spring! 🌸☀️

And finally, a very Happy Father’s Day to all our Avoca dads, grandads, stepdads, father figures and all those remembering someone special this weekend. 💚

We hope there’s good food, giant fruit and maybe a sneaky punnet of Tramachhis involved. 🍓

Happy Father’s Day weekend, Avoca!


01/09/2026

🍊 MARKET UPDATE 🍊

Funny how a trip to the markets for ONE thing never quite works out that way…

One of our regulars asked us to grab him a whole tray (or two!) of Sumo mandarins and we’d completely sold out, so back to the markets we went. He’s already been in to collect his stash, but as it turns out, it was a very good day for us to go 👀

We managed to get our hands on some seriously hard-to-get premium berries that very nearly didn’t make it from the car to the shelf 😂

The big Burst Passionfruit are BACK too.

We picked up our usual OPA12 Burst Passionfruit, plus a small batch of a different new-season passionfruit out of Lakeland from the same supplier, J.E. Tipper. This one is quite different to the Burst we’ve all become obsessed with. It’s more delicate and sweet, with a beautiful floral note. If you’re a passionfruit person, grab one of each and compare them because they’re genuinely interesting side by side.

And this is what we love about finding these newer varieties. If you’ve been telling us you “haven’t had passionfruit like this in years”… there’s a pretty good reason some of these fruits feel different to what you remember. The newer genetics coming through are producing some incredible fruit.

🍊 Cara Cara oranges are BACK.

🍐 Piqa Boo pears are… not.
We tried AGAIN. Still couldn’t get them. At this point we might have to make another market run later this week because apparently we’re not very good at accepting defeat 😂

🍎 MISSILE APPLE WARNING:
They’re coming to the end of their season. We have warned you. Repeatedly. When they disappear, don’t say we didn’t tell you.

🥕 We’ve also brought in Dutch carrots to try. Our suggestion: roast them whole until they start to caramelise, then toss through butter, a little Australian honey, cracked pepper and sea salt. Simple and SO good.

🥦 And genuine Perfection Fresh Broccolini® is still here. A little fun fact: Broccolini® isn’t just another name for baby broccoli. It’s its own variety, a cross between broccoli and Chinese kale, with sweeter flavour, tender stems and those more delicate florets. If it doesn’t actually say Broccolini® on the tag, it’s baby broccoli.

And while you’re here, have a wander beyond the fruit & veg because lots of new things have quietly been popping up around the store lately 👀

🥣 Eclipse Organics muesli & granola
🍯 Wild Nectar 100% Australian raw, cold-extracted honey
🥔 DK’s Potato Chips in Purple, Pink & Classic, made from Otway-grown potatoes
🥜 New nuts & dried fruit
☕ New coffee

* plenty more from our new Market Grocer range.

Basically, come in hungry and have a look around.

And if anyone sees a box of Piqa Boo pears hiding at the markets… apparently we’re looking for those too. 😂

Address

178 Avoca Drive
Avoca Beach, NSW
2251

Opening Hours

Monday 7am - 8pm
Tuesday 7am - 8pm
Wednesday 7am - 8pm
Thursday 7am - 8pm
Friday 7am - 8pm
Saturday 7am - 8pm
Sunday 7am - 8pm

Telephone

+61243821884

Website

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