For more than two decades Oak Tree has been a devanning force in Canterbury and Auckland. We are a professional container devanning company that offer opportunities for employment, training and skill development to people who enjoy physical work.
Our Story
Oak Tree began in 2002 as a social enterprise under the umbrella of the Pathway Charitable Group. Co-founder Mike Cooper named it Oak Tree after a passage in Isaiah: "They will be like oak trees that are strong and straight", referring to the young men he was working with and mentoring at the time.
Back then, most container devanning was undertaken by temp agencies working for an hourly rate. Oak Tree quickly grew by pioneering the model of fixed-cost devanning services that has become the norm today.
From humble beginnings in Christchurch, Oak Tree expanded to Auckland in 2005 and focused on delivering exceptional service to its logistics customers. It did this by coining the term "professional devanner" to describe its workforce and teaching that workforce how to bring a new level of professionalism to the discipline of devanning.
Today Oak Tree continues to operate in Christchurch and Auckland, with more locations on the way, and continues to pride itself on being a professional devanning business, both in terms of the service it provides to customers and also the way it treats its employees.
New levels of efficiency for customers and devanners are delivered through the company's investment in ProDevan, its bespoke end-to-end cloud-based App that handles incoming jobs and has our crews where they are supposed to be on time, every time! Well...almost.
Oak Tree continues to be a leader in the social enterprise space and offers career advancement opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds without discrimination.
We continue to employ a workforce experienced in the art of devanning, who are committed to high safety standards and getting the job done. The fixed-cost-per-container service we provide allows our customers to avoid overheads, while freeing them up to focus on more important tasks.
