Olivery News — harvest

This years Olive Harvest was a great success. A large crop and excellent weather meant we could harvest a total of 50 tonne, 15,000,000 olives in total. This year Manzanillo, Kalamata and Uovo di Piccione varieties were harvested.  What happens now..... Once the olives are harvested (watch here) they then go through the grader to be sized. Smaller Olives are pressed to make oil and larger olives are kept for our table olives. The large olives are then washed, and placed in 2000L vats or 200L barrels in brine (salt and water). Over the first 3 weeks, rapid fermentation begins using...

Olives picked today are processed tonight.  Here is some pictures from last nights processing. I find the olives always look better at night, I think it is 'selective seeing' in the low light...certainly the spills look smaller until the next day. I use this equipment to deleaf and size out the small olives.  The large olives go into barrels and vats for fermentation in brine and the smalls get pressed for oil within 24 hours..

Have had a lot of inquiries for Fresh Olives for home curing, so have made these available on the website.  Check them out. Some pictures from this years harvest .  

This shows the matrix we use to identify the quality of the olives after harvest as they come in from the grove.  This lot is from our Haumoana contract grower. Harvest notes from the log: Manzanillo Olives Good colour range A little disease (see the two green olives five rows down position three & four have brown spots).  These will need hand grading out. Not many stalks attached (makes for happy hand graders) Good size olives No wrinkle No frost damage Acceptable leaf and sticks quantity