Our Story
When people visit Bellevue Orchard, they often see the apples first. They see the rows of trees stretching across the hills, the tractors moving through the orchard, the tanks and presses and bottling lines, the juice, the cider, the vinegar, the shop, the tours, the families picking fruit.
What they don’t always see straight away is that Bellevue is, first and foremost, a family story.
It’s a story that began long before I was here, long before our juice brands existed, and long before anyone could have imagined what Bellevue would eventually become.
Our story begins in 1953, when my grandfather, Angelo and his brothers purchased Bellevue Orchard.
At the time, Nonno had been unwell with rheumatic fever, and his brothers wanted to help him step away from the fruit shops and market life they had been running together. Bellevue was an opportunity for him to move his young family to the country and focus on something different.
Angelo in the Orchard Circa 1970
The orchard was already established when they arrived. There were apple trees, two small wooden cool rooms, and plenty of hard work ahead.
My father, Robert, was less than a year old when they moved here.
Back then, the orchard was only one part of the family’s working life. My grandfather’s brothers continued with their fruit shops, while Nonno took on the day-to-day running of Bellevue. Over time, they expanded the infrastructure, building a brick packing shed and adding more cool rooms as the orchard grew.
Eventually, the next generation stepped in.
My uncle Joe began working on the orchard first, and after Dad completed his mechanics apprenticeship, he joined him. In time, the two brothers decided to take the leap and purchase Bellevue from their father and uncles.
They were young. They had big families. And, if I’m honest, they probably had more courage than business experience. What they did have was determination.
They threw themselves into the orchard, expanding storage, improving infrastructure, and building a wholesale fruit business to support the farm. Joe worked nights in the wholesale markets while both brothers spent their days managing the orchard.
Then came the difficult years. The high interest rates of the 80's and the Economic downturn in the 90's.
Long seasons where simply staying afloat felt like an achievement.
Dad doesn’t talk about those years much, but I know they were hard. Money was tight. Parts of the orchard fell behind. Maintenance had to wait. There were moments when, looking back, even Dad and Uncle Joe aren’t quite sure how they managed to turn things around.
But somehow, they did.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching Dad, it’s that resilience often looks a lot like stubbornness. He’s an inventor by nature. He understands machinery instinctively. He can build, modify, repair, and improve almost anything.
Long before “innovation” became a fashionable business word, Robert and Joe were finding ways to do things better, ideas came from the occasional overseas photo or a conversation with another grower. Bellevue has always quietly leaned toward progress.
Then, in the summer of 1998, everything changed. It was Australia Day weekend. Harvest was just around the corner and a hailstorm hit the orchard.
Not a little hail, the kind of hail that leaves the ground looking like it has snowed. The kind that takes chunks out of apples. The kind that makes you stand there wondering what on earth comes next.
For my father and uncle, it was catastrophic. After everything they had already weathered, they were suddenly staring at an orchard full of damaged fruit and no clear path forward.
But sometimes the worst moments become turning points. Joe called a friend in South Australia who had a small apple juice plant he wasn’t using. That friend sent it to us. It arrived needing plenty of love. Dad, who had never worked with juice-processing equipment before, began rebuilding it piece by piece. He taught himself how it worked. He built a pasteurisation system from scratch. They learned filling, labelling, and marketing as they went.
They had no roadmap. They just had apples, determination, and a willingness to figure things out.
That first juice needed a name. They called it Summer Snow. Because that storm had left the ground looking as though it had snowed in the middle of summer.
From the beginning, Dad and Joe knew the juice needed to be different. We were apple growers, after all, Why shouldn’t the apples be the hero?
That’s how Summer Snow became variety-specific - something that felt natural to us, but unusual in the market at the time. Fruit shops understood it immediately, and slowly, Summer Snow began building a loyal following.
Robert and Joe tasting the first ever Summer Snow juice in 1998
Juice opened new doors.
Then came cider. Then vinegar. And slowly, Bellevue began transforming from simply an orchard into something much more.
In 1994, my cousin Bernadette had already begun working here. She brought something invaluable deep knowledge of Bellevue and the confidence that comes from growing up inside a business and a way with customers and suppliers that rang with honesty.
When I joined in 2009, at the time, Bellevue was doing amazing things, but still running in wonderfully old-fashioned ways. No email, no website, no electronic invoices, no reporting or forecasting. Just hard work, family conversations, and a lot of instinct.
Bernadette and I began working closely together. Her greatest strength was that she’d been here for years. Mine, perhaps, was that I hadn’t.
Around us, the business grew, but not always smoothly. Much of the equipment had been pushed beyond what it was ever designed to do. Breakdowns were common. Dad spent much of his time keeping machinery alive. Space was tight.
So we began rebuilding. Not all at once. Piece by piece. A better filter. A better press. More storage. Improved systems. New bottling lines. New capabilities. A stronger foundation.
Each investment felt enormous at the time. Each one came with nerves. Each one required faith.
And now as much as then, we found ourselves right back in that familiar Bellevue position, working hard, taking risks, and trusting that the next step forward would be worth it. Those years were harder than people realised and there were personal hardships too. Family challenges, periods of real financial pressure.
Moments when the people running the business made sacrifices simply because they believed in what Bellevue could become. And slowly, it did. In 2019, we opened a small shop at the orchard. A few cider taps. A coffee machine. A tiny kitchen. An experiment, really ... That experiment has grown into something we now love, a chance to welcome people into Bellevue and let them experience the orchard for themselves.
Because Bellevue isn’t just about what we make. It’s about where it comes from.
Robert and Joe by the hail net applicator
Today, we’re still a family business. The second generation is still here every morning to greet the team and share their knowledge. The four cousins (just some of Angelo's 28 grandchildren) are deeply involved. And now the fourth generation is stepping in too, with the sons and daughters working alongside us.
That means a lot. The orchard has changed dramatically over the decades. The processing plant has grown. The equipment is more advanced. The scale is larger.
We now produce juice, cider, and apple cider vinegar across our brands Summer Snow, Trattore, and Active Apple.
We welcome visitors, run tours, host families during harvest, and invite people to pick fruit straight from the trees.
But underneath all that growth, the heart of Bellevue remains unchanged.
We are still apple growers. We still believe in solving problems creatively. We still believe in backing ourselves. We still believe in building things properly. And we still understand that every bottle begins with the orchard.
Roberts grandson eating a Bravo apple
Sometimes I think about how far Bellevue has come, from two small wooden cool rooms and a family taking a chance, to the business we’re building today. And I think about how many times this place has had to reinvent itself. Not because reinvention was exciting but because it was necessary. Because family businesses survive by adapting. Because orchards teach patience. Because sometimes a storm that looks like an ending can become the start of something entirely new.
That’s what Bellevue is for us. A workplace. A challenge. A responsibility. A legacy. A family story. And, for more than seventy years now, home.
NICK RUSSO
2023 Managment team: Joe, Liz, Nick, Michael and Robert
"An imaginative farming family,
growing great Australian fruit,
and making fantastic juice,
for the people you love.”
NICK
Below is an interview with Robert and Joe that we showed at our 70 year anniversary celebration, it has them telling their story in their own words.