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We are David and Heather Fenney and have been holidaying in the Far
North, at Taupo Bay for many years. While on holiday in 2002 David
went walk about to check out the Olivado Olive Grove and Press House
at Waipapa. Olivado showed me around their plant which was then
devoted to avocado oil production rather than olive oil. They directed
me to a new olive estate being developed near Mangonui.
What was I thinking? I had some vague notion about a ‘retirement
project’. Heather and I and our 3 children had recently holidayed in
Greece on Naxos and in Italy, mostly in Umbria and Tuscany. We had
read the books, seen the movie and were somewhat fascinated by the
idea of growing olive trees, just to keep busy, in our retirement.
Heather and I had a second look and bought a grove in Leccino Valley
Road on the Ocean View Olive Estate. We overlook the Oruaiti River
rather than the ocean but Mangonui Harbour is just over the ridge. In
2010 our trees are 7 and 8 years old and mostly over 3 metres tall.
We have moved significant amounts of compost and other nutrients on
to the grove and discovered the benefits of sea weed for minerals and
trace elements. We are in the olive oil business.
The Ocean View Olive Estate: The Ocean View Olive Estate comprises some 40 olive groves owned by some 30 owners with over 20,000 olive trees. The Far North District Council issued a ‘Specified Land Use’ of growing olives. We liked the idea of being part of a group of Olive Growers rather than going it alone. Ocean View Olive Estate Limited: OVOEL is a company formed in 2005 comprising a number of grove owners as shareholders. This company owns the Press House on the estate and of course a press amongst other plant and equipment. The press is an Italian OMT Pegaso 500 Centrifuge Press comprising a charge hopper, leaf blower, wash tank, 2 stage stainless steel crusher, a stainless steel kneader with a one ton capacity and a horizontal centrifuge (decanter). It has the capacity to process up to 500 kg of olives per hour and during the harvest runs 24/7 until the work is done. OVOEL is GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) and NZFSA (NZ Food Standards Authority) registered and provides horticultural services to Grove Owners. Extra Virgin Olive Oil: What is it all about? (Most of this comes from Wikipedia) The International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) is an intergovernmental organisation based in Madrid, Spain, with 23 member states. Approximately 95% of the world’s olives are grown in IOOC member countries. The United States is not a member of the IOOC but California is. Commercial Grades of olive oil are classified as: • Virgin means the oil was produced by physical means with no chemical treatment. • Refined means the oil has been chemically treated to neutralise strong tastes (characterised as defects) and acid content (free fatty acids). Refined oil is a lower quality than virgin oil. • Pomace Olive Oil means oil extracted from the pomace using chemical solvents (mostly hexane) and heat. Pomace is the semi solid waste material from the ‘first press’ of the olives. Quantitative Anaysis: Quantitative analysis can determine the oils acidity, defined as the percentage, measured by weight, of the free oleic acid (free fatty acid) it contains. This is a measure of the oils chemical degradation. As the oil degrades, more fatty acids are freed from the glycerides, increasing the level of free acidity and thereby increasing rancidity. Another measure of the oils chemical degradation is the organic peroxide level which measures the degree to which the oil is oxidised, another cause of rancidity. There is an optimum time for picking fruit for olive oil production which is no longer than the 7 to 10 days when most of the fruit is fully ripe. Pick too early and you get pungent, peppery tasting oils. Pick too late and the acidity rises. This optimum ripeness point varies for different cultivars. Having picked the crop it is important to press it as soon as possible. Delayed pressing and storage of fruit will increase the peroxide levels. Organoleptic Quality: In order to classify it by taste, olive oil is subjected to a blind taste test by a panel of professional judges. IOOC Retail Grades: IOOC member states or countries are supposed to use the following classifications on labels: • Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) comes from virgin oil production only and contains less than 0.8% acidity. Peroxide level should be less than 20. EVOO is judged to have ‘superior’ taste. • Virgin Olive Oil comes from virgin oil production only, has less than 2% acidity and is judged to have ‘good’ taste. • Pure Olive Oil or Olive Oil is usually a blend of mostly refined oil and some virgin production oil. It should have less than 1.5% acidity and usually lacks any strong flavour. • Refined Olive Oil is olive oil obtained from virgin oils by refining methods that do not lead to alterations in the initial glyceridic structure. It has free acidity, expressed as oleic acid, of less than 0.3 grams per 100 grams or 0.3%. Refining eliminates high acidity levels and/or organoleptic defects. No solvents are used, refining is achieved through the use of charcoal and other chemical or physical filters. • Olive-Pomace Oil is produced from re-refining the pomace (olive semi solid waste material) from the first pressing, possibly using heat and solvents. It may also be blended with some virgin oil. It is fit for consumption but is rarely sold at retail. It is mainly used for deep frying in restaurants. • According to Wikipedia, over 50% of the oil produced in the Mediteranean area is of such poor quality that it must be refined to produce an edible product. My understanding is that the sheer volume of fruit to be harvested makes for an extended harvest beyond the ‘optimum ripe period’ needed for low acidity. Also, in Spain, where the harvest should ideally be completed between say late October to late November it in fact extends through to the end of February thus increasing the peroxide levels. Label wording and other issues: • 100% Pure Olive Oil is probably the lowest quality oil available in a retail store, better grades would use the words ‘virgin’ or ‘extra virgin’ on the label. • Refined Olive Oil means the taste and acidity were chemically controlled. • Light Olive Oil means refined olive oil with less flavour. All olive oil has 34kj/ml. • ‘From hand picked olives’ implies that the fruit and therefore the oil is of better quality as olives picked mechanically may be bruised or left to over ripen longer to increase yields. • ‘First Cold Press’ implies virgin oil of better quality but this can be misleading. ‘First’ suggests that the oil is from the first pressing and ‘Cold’ suggests that no heat is used. For virgin oil there is no second press, that is where pomace oil comes in, so all it means is that it was pressed versus other possible methods of extracting oil. ‘Cold’ is ambiguous. IOOC say the term ’cold pressed’ may only be used if the temperature is below 27°C. The issue is that in Calabria or Tuscany (in Northern Italy) the harvest is in October or November when the ground temperature over night may be as low as 10-15°C. It’s the beginning of winter. In order to extract oil efficiently the paste is regularly heated above the environmental temperature. In Southern Italy or North Africa the environmental temperature may be up to 35°C, thus no other heat is required. There is no reliable international definition of the term ‘Cold Pressed’. • Labels may indicate an oil was bottled or packed in a stated country. It does not follow necessarily that the oil was produced there. Spain and Greece export oil to Italy where it is bottled and re-exported to the rest of the world. New Zealand Olive Oils: Growing olives for oil in New Zealand is still a young, mostly boutique, industry but it seems that everybody involved understands that picking the fruit at the right time and harvesting without delay will generally speaking produce Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Perhaps because of this, Olives New Zealand (ONZ) has raised the bar for its certification above the IOOC Standard. ONZ certification requires less than 0.5% Oleic (Free Fatty) Acid and a Peroxide Value less than 15mEq per kg. This compares to the IOOC Standard of less than 0.8%FFA and a Peroxide Value of less than 20. ONZ has a panel of Sensory Judges. Devon Olive Oils: • We grow our 4 cultivars; J5, Frantoio, Leccino and Koroneiki in soils which are free draining and enriched with mulch and compost. We put seaweed into our compost and generally distribute this around our trees when the worms are still active. • We do soil tests in Spring and fertilise according to need. Generally some lime and other broad spectrum fertiliser and Boron. We also copper spray for fungal diseases before flower set. • We prune our trees to enhance airflow and penetration of sunlight into the trees. Olives grow on last season’s new wood. • We endeavour to harvest when the fruit is ‘optimally ripe’. This means there will be some green/gold, some purple flushed and some/mostly black fruit and in any event before the birds take too much interest. In the Far North we do not have to beat early frosts. • We deliver our olives to the Press House in the late afternoon for pressing over night or sometimes the following day. • Our Groves are managed according to NZ GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) to ensure our oil is; safe to eat, of good quality and produced in a sustainable manner. • OVOEL press olives for oil according to NZ Food Safety Standards. The fruit is checked for condition and ripeness prior to pressing. Once the fruit is loaded to the Charge Hopper there is a seamless or continuous process through de-leafing, washing, crushing, kneading and finally pressing in an in line centrifuge/ decanter. The oil is sieved then held in bulk storage under nitrogen to prevent oxygen contamination and to allow any sediment to settle. • The yield of olive oil varies from as low as 10% and up to 20+% depending on water content and ripeness. The oil invariably tests out at very low acidity and peroxide levels, less than 0.2% acidity and less than 10 peroxide level. This is significantly better than the IOOC and ONZ standards for Extra Virgin Olive Oil. • Devon Olive Oil is produced without the use of heat, chemicals or micro-filtering. The oil is allowed to settle and is decanted 3 times prior to bottling to remove any sediment. We believe this enhances the flavour and retains those all important antioxidants, vitamins and polyphenols which contribute to the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil. |
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