A first for Australian fruit
Nobody has ever auctioned fruitlike this before.
For a hundred years scarce produce was sold on a phone call and a guess. This high-tech live floor gives dedicated producers a transparent path to approved buyers and restaurants — so rare and exceptional lines can find their true price, with the producer’s name on every box.
Watch it in two minutes
The auction, start to hammer.
Why it matters most for scarce fruit
When there isn’t much of it, a fixed price is a guess.
Forty boxes of first-pick cherries. A single pallet of mangosteens. A variety only three farms in the country grow. Put a fixed price on that and one of two things happens: it’s gone in four minutes and was undervalued, or it sits there because you guessed high and nobody rang. An auction removes the guess. The buyers who want it most say so, quietly, and the fruit lands exactly where scarcity says it should.
How the auction works
Five steps, start to hammer.
You put the rare gear up
Pick the lot, the box count and a start price you would happily accept. Set a reserve if you want a floor under it. Choose how long it runs — twenty minutes for a hot line, overnight for the big ones.
Buyers bid quietly
Approved fruit shops, providores and restaurants enter a private maximum — the most they will ever pay. Nobody sees anybody else's ceiling.
SmartBid does the bidding
SmartBid lifts a buyer's bid one step at a time, only as far as it has to. If the best maximum is $92 and the next is $78, it lands at $80 — not $92, and not $60. The market finds the honest number on its own.
Late bid, extra five minutes
Any bid in the last five minutes pushes the clock out another five. No sniping on the bell. It only closes when the bidding has genuinely stopped.
Sold means sold
Hammer falls, the boxes are reserved to that buyer, transport and ETA go on the order, and your money runs on the same clock as everything else on the platform — paid six days after delivery to the shop.
SmartBid, in plain English
You bid your ceiling once. It never leaks.
A buyer enters the very most they would pay for the lot. SmartBid then bids on their behalf in small steps, and stops the second it’s in front. A buyer never pays their maximum just because they typed it, and a grower never sells cheap just because the keenest buyer was asleep at 4am.
Worked example — 40 boxes of cherries
- Start price — $60 a box, reserve $65.
- Buyer A quietly sets a maximum of $92.
- Buyer B quietly sets a maximum of $78.
- SmartBid lands the lot with Buyer A at $80 — one step over B, not a cent of A’s ceiling wasted.
- The grower banked $20 a box over the fixed price they would have set. Nobody haggled, nobody rang around.
What it means for the grower
Six ways it helps quality remain viable on the farm.
Scarcity finally pays
When there are forty boxes and sixty buyers who want them, a fixed price leaves your money on the table. An auction hands that gap back to you.
You are never below your floor
Your reserve is your reserve. Bidding stops short of it, the fruit doesn't sell — and nobody talked you down at 4am.
Real prices, not rumours
You see exactly what the trade paid for your line, in writing. Next season you price from facts, not from what someone told you the market did.
Rare lines get found
Mangosteens, first-of-season cherries, a tiny pick of something unusual — the buyers who chase that fruit get told the moment it goes up.
One pick, one sale
A small odd lot that's awkward to price sells clean in one hit instead of sitting in the cool room losing days.
Your name is on it the whole way
Farm, variety, pick date and grower shown on every bid screen. Buyers bid for your fruit, not for anonymous boxes.
Fair to both sides of the floor
Buyers get a straight run at it too.
Every bidder is approved
Real fruit shops, providores and restaurants with an account and a trading history. No tyre-kickers.
One clock, everyone sees it
Same lot, same timer, same information — grower, farm, size, class and pick date on the screen.
No bidding wars for show
Private maximums mean nobody is baited into paying over the odds. You win it at the next step, not at your limit.
Regulars get told first
Buyers who support growers season after season are notified the moment a scarce lot opens.
The board
On now, coming up, and what the last lots made.
On the hammer now
Bidding open — sign in to put a number on it.
Nothing under the hammer this minute. The rare gear usually goes up of an evening.
Coming up
Lots loaded and waiting on their start time.
No lots waiting just yet. Growers set these the day before.
Sold and settled
What the trade actually paid, hammer price.
The first results will show here once tonight's lots settle.
Bidding happens inside the trading platform — approved fruit shops, providores and restaurants only.
Got something rare in the cool room?
Put it on the floor tonight and let the trade tell you what it’s worth. Thomas will walk you through your first lot himself.