Flannerys Organic Wholefood Market Opens New Store in Neutral Bay

Flannerys Organic Wholefood Market is bringing certified organic wholefoods, bulk pantry staples and an in-store naturopath service to the lower north shore with the opening of its newest store at Shop 15, Theo’s Arcade on Military Road, Neutral Bay.



The store opens on Friday 19 June and continues a steady run of expansion for a brand that began life in 1973 as a small shop in northern New South Wales. Founded by Mal and Berice Flannery on a simple premise that food is medicine, the business has spent more than five decades building a reputation for organic products and trusted health advice.

For Neutral Bay locals, the new store means certified organic fresh produce, bulk wholefoods, vitamins, supplements and natural health products are now available within walking distance, alongside the qualified naturopath consultations that have defined the Flannerys experience since its earliest days.

More than 50 years of organic retailing

What started as a modest local operation offering bulk wholefoods and natural supplements has grown into one of the most recognised organic retail brands on Australia’s east coast. The Flannery family sold the business in 2008, with the brand passing to new owners who carried forward the same founding philosophy.

Today it operates under The Natural Grocery Company, which also runs Fundies Wholefood Market and Kunara Organic Marketplace.

The brand marked 50 years in business in 2024, a milestone that reflects genuine longevity in a retail category that has seen plenty of competitors come and go. Flannerys now operates stores across Queensland in Benowa, Chermside, Maroochydore, Paddington, Miami, Robina, Tewantin and Victoria Point, alongside New South Wales locations in Mona Vale and Murwillumbah.

In-store health advice remains a key focus

The naturopath service is central to how Flannerys positions itself against standard health food retailers. Every store includes access to qualified naturopaths and nutritionists offering free, complementary wellbeing advice on the shop floor, with private clinic consultations also available for anyone wanting a more in-depth session.

Photo Credit: Flannerys

Flannerys CEO Fergus Collins says the appeal comes down to trust built through direct access to expertise. “Flannerys fits into places where people are already thinking carefully about what they bring into their homes and how it supports the way they want to live,” he said.

“We want customers to be able to walk in, ask questions and feel confident in their choices. Having qualified naturopaths available in store has always been an important part of the Flannerys experience and something that continues to resonate strongly with our customers.”

Building on momentum in Sydney

The Neutral Bay opening builds directly on the momentum of Flannerys’ recently refurbished Mona Vale store, which was the brand’s first foothold in Sydney and has since been embraced by the local community. That response gave the company confidence to push further into the Sydney market.

“The response we have seen in Mona Vale has given us great confidence in Sydney and reinforced that there is a strong appetite for what Flannerys offers,” Collins said. “As the Neutral Bay area continues to evolve, so too does the expectation for spaces and services that support a more health conscious way of living. We look forward to becoming part of the community and providing an offering that makes everyday wellness easy and accessible.”

Flannerys Neutral Bay opens Friday 19 June at Shop 15, Theo’s Arcade, Military Road, Neutral Bay. For more information, click here.



Published 18-June-2026

Neutral Bay Set for Major Redevelopment Under $191 Million Approval

Woolworths Group‘s development arm Fabcot has secured approval for a $191 million mixed-use project in Neutral Bay, bringing a 12-storey building to the Lower North Shore site that will bury the supermarket below ground and replace it with a new street-level plaza, retail, a medical centre and 97 apartments.



Approval was granted in May, three days after a Housing Delivery Authority rezoning lifted height controls on the 4,207-square-metre site, clearing the way for a project that caps a six-year push by Fabcot through a series of planning obstacles.

It is the first project in North Sydney to receive Housing Delivery Authority rezoning and State Significant Development approval at the same time, something Woolworths Group national general manager of mixed-use development Pierre Abrahamse said could help open the door for more projects across the area

The project is designed by Koichi Takada Architects and is scheduled to begin construction in 2026, with completion targeted for 2029.

Six years from proposal to approval

Fabcot first approached the planning process in 2020, engaging with the Military Road corridor and the Neutral Bay town centre with a scheme that was refused twice at the local level before being escalated to a state rezoning review and eventually the HDA pathway.

Photo Credit: Sydney Build Expo/LinkedIn

The earlier proposal had been shaped around a part-six and part-eight-storey scheme of approximately 62 apartments, a 1.8:1 minimum non-residential floor-space ratio and around 372 basement car spaces. The approved scheme is considerably more ambitious.

Height controls lifted from 26 metres and 31 metres to 31 metres and 44 metres under the HDA rezoning, and the minimum non-residential floor-space ratio fell to 1.5:1. The result is a taller, more mixed-use project with significantly more apartments, more commercial space and a stronger contribution to Neutral Bay’s public domain.

Photo Credit: Sydney Build Expo/LinkedIn

Local opposition remained strong throughout the process. Thirty of the 46 public submissions objected to the project, raising concerns about traffic, height, overshadowing, parking, affordable housing and the treatment of the Yeo Street boundary.

The state planning department backed the project, finding the site sat within the Neutral Bay town centre where greater height and mixed-use renewal were expected, noting that similar nine to 14-storey buildings already existed within 250 metres.

Photo Credit: Sydney Build Expo/LinkedIn

A closer look at the proposal

The approved scheme stacks a significant amount of program into a single building. At the base, a 1,100-square-metre plaza links Rangers Road, Yeo Street and Military Lane, creating a new piece of publicly accessible outdoor space in the heart of the commercial precinct.

Ten ground-floor retail tenancies activate the street edge, while the Woolworths supermarket moves to an underground position, freeing the street level for outdoor dining and movement.

Photo Credit: Sydney Build Expo/LinkedIn

Levels one to three house a medical centre providing a new health services anchor for the suburb. Above that sit 87 market apartments and 10 affordable apartments to be maintained at that tenure for 15 years, spread across a mix of one, two, three and four-bedroom configurations.

The commercial component totals 6,575 square metres, while a covered through-site link from Yeo Street, eight metres wide and six metres high, provides weather-protected pedestrian movement through the site. The department accepted the covered link over the local preference for an open-to-sky break, finding the dimensions provided sufficient visual relief.

A suburb built around Military Road

Military Road became Neutral Bay’s commercial spine from the early 1870s, when a track running along the ridge from North Sydney towards Middle Head fortifications gradually attracted shops and businesses along its length. The suburb, known to the Cammeraygal people as Wirra-birra, was declared a neutral harbour by Governor Arthur Phillip in 1789 for foreign ships visiting Port Jackson.

The Military Road corridor has since evolved through trams, department stores, the Big Bear supermarket and decades of mixed commercial development, with mixed-use apartment buildings replacing earlier low-rise shopping strips across recent decades. The Fabcot project continues that long trajectory, this time at a scale made possible by the state’s housing fast-track framework.

The project will generate 263 construction jobs and 143 operational jobs on completion. Consent conditions include groundwater testing, wind, traffic, landscaping and construction management requirements before a construction certificate can be issued.



Published 18-May-2026