Tropical Urban Food Forest
TROPICAL URBAN FOOD FOREST
Who we are
Troppo is a tropical urban food forest and exotic plant nursery in Te Puke, Bay of Plenty — fruit trees, subtropicals, and rare edibles for New Zealand gardeners, plus workshops, tours, and the free Troppo grower-tool suite.
We are an initiative of Vector Group Charitable Trust (NZ registered charity CC45966), mission Envisioning Sustainable Communities Creatively. Troppo is the living demonstration and founding hub of Kai Resilience — the charity’s food-security and community-kai programme. The national directory lives at kairesilience.food.
On a town-scale plot we model stacked canopy, syntropic biomass cycles, and diverse community food growing in a warm, largely frost-free climate — then share what we learn through the shop, this site, our free tools, and the wider network.
What we offer
- Online nursery — tropical and exotic edible plants; nationwide shipping via troppo.nz/shop
- Living food forest — proof-of-concept for urban and suburban kai growing in Te Puke
- Workshops & tours — hands-on tropical and permaculture learning (see foodforest.tours)
- Free grower tools — five interactive calculators born here; info on troppo.nz/tools, collective hub at kairesilience.food/tools
- Growing advice — articles and community stories on our blog
Free grower tools
Five free tools for designing food forests and productive gardens in Aotearoa. Each has an info page on troppo.nz with features, FAQs, and a link to the live app — start at troppo.nz/tools or jump to a tool below.
Kai Resilience & Food Resilience School
Kai Resilience connects growers, projects, and food-resilience initiatives nationally. Troppo is where the programme took root — literally — as a demonstrator site and tool-builder. Explore the directory at kairesilience.food.
Food Resilience School NZ (foodresilience.school.nz) delivers free online courses in regenerative growing, food forests, and kai security — with a WordPress hub at kairesilience.food/school.
Kai Resilience in the Bay of Plenty
Kai Resilience in Te Puke has its flagship living hub at Troppo — tropical urban food forest, exotic nursery, and free grower tools in the kiwifruit capital. That work is part of Kai Resilience in the Bay of Plenty (Kai Resilience BOP): practical growing, community kai, workshops, and links to growers across the Western Bay of Plenty.
Kai Resilience New Zealand is the national programme — directory, school, and tools at kairesilience.food. Troppo is where Vector Group Charitable Trust’s kai mandate took visible root in the BOP. Read our roots & vision for the lineage since 2011.
The Vector Group kai network
Troppo sits inside a wider kai resilience network built by Vector Group Charitable Trust (CC45966) in the Bay of Plenty and across Aotearoa:
- Kai Resilience — national food-resilience directory and co-operative hub (grower tools · school funnel)
- Food Resilience School NZ — free online courses in regenerative growing and food resilience
- Food Forests New Zealand — community hub for food-forest growers
- Food Forests NZ resource hub — start-here gateway, tools, and regional knowledge
- Grow Te Puke — regional community food-growing hub
- RegenOS — regenerative land planning and design
- Kiwifruit.Capital — Bay of Plenty regional guide (tourism, local business, kiwifruit sector)
- Food Forest Tours — guided food-forest experiences
- Troppo on vectorgroup.org.nz — charity project page
Visit us: 36 Clydesburn Ave, Te Puke, Bay of Plenty 3119 · info@troppo.nz · 027 414 4280 · Instagram · Facebook
Website by Te Puke Digital.