Everything we've
learned so far.

"A premium juice company that captures the health benefits of New Zealand grown fruit and berries" — not just cherry juice: blueberry, peach, nectarine, kiwi. Cherry is the hero, the brand is bigger.

Cam (GM, everything) · Nick Agoli (sales mgr, Meta + NZ wholesale, first employee) · Amanda Critchfield (marketing mgr — writes the Klaviyo emails, most blogs + product descriptions) · Steph (neuroscience background — science authority, owns website + apps) · Jacob (AU manager) · Michelle (AU pick/pack) · Kenneth (Auckland — customer service + logistics, "the backbone") + Owen · Jason (production mgr) learning from Gary ("the ultimate production director") · Crystal (QA + factory shop) · Carol (admin) · Gary & Steph snr semi-retired, working seasons + trade shows.

Amanda = default blog author · Cam = story / season recaps / production · Steph = science pieces. Gary = deepest production knowledge.

Online 72% · wholesale 19% · markets 8% · export 1% (Malaysia, Taiwan — "quite big in Taiwan now" — Japan, India just started). ~15 AU shows/year. Product: cherry 62% · blueberry 14% · cherry mixes 13%.

Cherry first (the reviews, the results). Then kiwifruit + peach are the sleeping giants — "huge growth to come… we don't really do a good job at SEO on those ones", and they're more unique now cherry has copycats. Focus set: the 100% pure range, 750ml six/twin packs + 100ml sachets.

Sparkling range (margin, not sold in AU) · 2L casks (branded "Gourmet", less premium) · merch + gift-with-purchase items (upsell only, no product pages).

"Australia is the one that we have been missing out on, and we need to capitalise on." Target buyer is 40+, mostly 50+ — on Google constantly; agentic search is the next tier.

Cam: Google Australia rankings, and the subscription model ("one of the biggest pet peeves"). Steph: collection-page design (banner + title). Conversion friction: "do you ship to Australia?" asked daily — "if one person is asking it, three people are just not buying." Currency-picker placement constrained by the Singapore price gap.

Steph: all website changes. Orders/refunds: Kenneth, Jacob, Michelle, Cam + Alexandra. Amanda: the big email sends.

New subscription platform ~end of August · AU entity + Shopify Plus move before end of August (5.3% → 2.3% fees; store architecture TBD — keep TE in the loop) · Black Friday (sales only) · new pure blackberry juice + benefits-page section. Summer production: 40 days straight, 10+ hour days.

Persona ranking confirmed — "bang on." Welcome-quiz data: benefits ≫ flavour. Reviews: "most people are there for sleep, some for gout and arthritis" — "by far sleep." Sleep/melatonin is the moat cluster.

100% natural, no additives — "instead of taking a pill, they can have something that's just come from nature." The market pitch: cherries contain melatonin + tryptophan (educate, never claim treatment) → 2kg of cherries a bottle → "have a look at our 5,000-plus five-star reviews."

They are NOT organic — and no commercial organic cherry supply exists in NZ (too delicate; importing = frozen). Plan: an honest "why we're not organic" FAQ + blog rather than avoiding the audience.

"Price, for sure" + pack size ($55 trial risk). Proven counter: the $25 bottle ≈ 15 nights ≈ "$1.30 per night for good sleep" reframe from their best-performing ad.

Meta = the engine. Email underperforming — "open rates through the floor compared to two years ago"; Steph's diagnosis: segmentation stopped; re-segmented sends recovering.

Base grows monthly but ~25% churn after first order (suspects discount-grabbers). Many build-your-own six-packs; ~25% chop and change. Hard numbers: Steph exporting everything from the subscription software before it's replaced.

Okendo + AI summaries; overwhelmingly sleep. We're mining the full corpus ourselves. Cadence/ask-workflow: Call 2

Bickford's — big, plastic 1L, Turkish concentrate + water, "brown, thick and gluggy". Australian Natural Drinks Co — genuinely AU-made but batch-pasteurised, brown, overripe taste. Mount Wilder — the positioning threat: glass, premium "bougie" branding ($32/500ml), but imported concentrate. The one whose branding they admire. Cherry Hill (new, Victoria; purecherryjuice.com.au) — a real grower "pretty much directly copying us, down to the taglines of two kilos of cherries in every bottle", pumping out AI-generated content, attacking with "Australian-made vs imported".

Flash pasteurisation — "we heat it up to 82 degrees for a split second" vs competitors batch-heating the whole bottle 30+ minutes → oxidation → brown. Plus fresh (never frozen) cherries pressed immediately. "We're the only ones that have a nice, really purple colour. The rest are brown." Cam is arranging lab tests of all competitor juices (anthocyanins/antioxidants) — potential proprietary proof content.

Us-vs-them ads flopped in NZ (tall poppy) but performed better in AU. Steph's line: photo comparisons without naming names. And no production-superiority claims until tested — "we can't say our method is better because we haven't tested other methods."

Base = the brand guideline's tone-of-voice: warm, welcoming, a bit of Kiwi charm; speak to customers like friends; friendly and down-to-earth; honest and transparent (no jargon or fluff); passionate and knowledgeable without being salesy; sustainable without preaching. Positioning line locked: "a premium juice company that captures the natural health benefits of New Zealand-grown fruit and berries" + the "premium taste" angle. It evolves as we calibrate content together.

"It's about saying our cherries have this… not saying our juice will put you to sleep." Educate about the fruit, never claim the juice. The Meta ad archive = the tested, approved claims library (Tyler exporting).

4,000–5,000+ five-star reviews (Okendo) · a draft external thesis showing their pasteurisation method retains benefits (Steph asking Rebecca for publishing permission) · benefits page with referenced research (~2 years old — refresh cycle needed) · New World fridge placement, farmers markets.

"There's a bunch of stuff in my brain that I've just never had the time to write down about production process… you can just tease it out of me and rip the audio." Agreed: Ben sends a question list → Cam records driving voice notes ("his own podcast").

Benefits page + references · draft thesis (pending permission) · Meta ad copy (Tyler exporting all campaign copy) · the Okendo review corpus · team photography on site.

Cherries: exclusively Central Otago, growers within 50km of the factory (the old Marlborough tagline on-site is wrong — on the fix list) · juiced in Alexandra · blueberries Hawke's Bay, other fruit from around NZ · factory shop where Crystal greets visitors · deep market/trade-show circuit. GBP ownership + gate-sales detail: Async

Dominate AI search · beat Cherry Hill · a strong long-game Australian presence (.com.au down the line). The phrase to own: premium cherry juice — first mention in AI answers. "We're not going to beat Bickford's at a low-cost option… and we don't want to." The angle: a premium juice that helps with sleep and inflammation (said the compliant way).

GSC ✓ · GA4 ✓ · Shopify collaborator ✓ · Email = Klaviyo (Amanda) · Meta = Nick + Tyler, read access being granted · Google Ads — Cam adding us · Reviews = Okendo (we'll consolidate duplicate schema carefully — review system untouched) · Comms = shared Slack channel (TE creates, email in the interim) · Steph = website point person, wants a timeline on every request.

Async — GBP ownership · domain/DNS holder · previous SEO work/audits · photo-sharing channel · content sign-off + turnaround · reporting cadence.