Where some sheds might have a beer fridge, Avery’s has a freezer stacked with slabs of mechanically recovered chicken meat. This comes in 50 kg blocks that Avery slices into manageable slabs with a chainsaw in his back yard (he uses the meat in his life-saving protein formula). A large cylindrical freeze drier occupies the front corner of his “shed.” Avery’s dressed in smart trousers and a spotless white shirt.
He says he comes in for a couple of hours every night “to have a play, a bit like most guys,” but also states with a grin, “I’ve got bigger toys than most people.” You can add to that bigger ambitions. Without a hint of doubt, he says he’s out to change the world and he’s achieving it from his garage.

...Avery instantly fell in love with New Zealand, its “can-do, giving-things-a-go” attitude. Thirty years later in 2003, after stints in property, furniture and lecturing in pharmacology at Auckland University, that attitude made it possible for Avery to set up Medicine Mondiale to tackle health issues in the developing world, with the voluntary efforts of scientists, lawyers, accountants and countless other professionals.
“I never get turned away,” says Avery of requests to yet another person to join his network of helpers. He’ll often get a reaction along the lines of “I don’t think I can help, but I know a man who can. You want to see Fred.”

Read more in the June/July 2010 issue of The Shed