Bountiful harvest for olive growers, despite challenges
Last year was pretty much a write-off for the Bay’s olive growers because pollination just didn’t happen with the wet conditions that persisted over flowering time.
But the latest olive-growing season, which has just finished, has returned a bountiful harvest, despite dry late-summer weather and too much rain during ripening. Understandably then, it was full-on in the household of Steve Baxendale and Jo Johnson at Pakawau as the fruit of their 450 olive trees ripened over the last few weeks of the season.
Picking the three tonnes of olives is the relatively straightforward part of their operation. The fruit is then put through a deleafer and washer and tipped into their press. In this, the whole olive—flesh and stone together—is ground into a paste that is then mixed for hours in the “malaxer”. Centrifugal force then separates out the extra-virgin oil and it is streamed into containers for bottling and labelling.
Every stage is meticulous and carefully monitored. It’s a far cry from the romantic images many people have of owning a grove like Golden Bay Olives’.
“Obviously we’re just a small operation,” says Steve, “but what we produce is high quality. Our ‘Olives NZ’ certification now proves that too, and tests things like oleic acid and peroxide levels. The standards set in this country are twice as stringent as those overseas, so we can fairly target the top end of the market. New Zealand growers are never going to produce the quantities that Australian ones are turning out, so going higher-end niche-market is definitely the way to go here.”
The quantity of saleable oil extracted amounts to roughly one-tenth of the bulk processed, so this year Steve and Jo’s production will be around 250 to 300 litres—not bad when you realise they have no trouble getting around $50 for every litre they produce. Much of the oil is packed into square 250ml and 500ml bottles, which sell for around $15 and $28 each respectively.
“Our whole production gets bought locally,” says Jo. “Last year we were all totally sold out by Christmas. A couple of local restaurants buy it in bulk, like the Courthouse in Collingwood, which uses it in everything as part of their local food policy. Good olive oil is a commodity that’s in demand and we just can’t produce enough of it.”
Steve and Jo are hoping to raise production, and are planting out every last nook and cranny of their two-hectare property adjoining Pakawau Inlet. The bulk of their trees are Leccino and Frantoio, which make their peppery Tuscan-blend oil, and Koroneiki, which gives them their clear and more fragrant Greek-style oil. A few pickling olives supplement their range, mainly Kalamata, extra-large fruits that they pick by hand.
Like many small-scale olive growers, they have started to use battery-powered mechanical pickers to harvest their crop. These hand-held machines look like a long, grass-cutting strimmer, but have long rubber protrusions at the end that rotate and knock the fruit onto big sheets of black windbreak cloth, ready for collection.
Taking their crop over the hill for pressing in their first few years wore thin, which is why they decided five years ago to import (at a cost of $29,000) Golden Bay’s first olive press. Their grunty, state-of-the-art and very stainless-steel Oliomio 50 came from Italy, and gets its number from how many kilograms of olives it can process per hour. The Baxendales will press anyone else’s olives as well, but it has to be a minimum of 50kg.
Says Steve, “Sure, setting up has been a big outlay, but it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. We were drawn to the Mediterranean diet factor, but this is all about a family lifestyle as well, one that our four kids can get involved in. It’s still a bit of a juggle, but we all enjoy it.”
Jo works as manager of Te Whare Mahana in Takaka, but Steve left his job there as employment co-ordinator three years ago to become the “main man” on their land at Pakawau. Last year he undertook an olive-pressing course; this year, it’s one on oil-tasting.
Joel, their eldest son, is right into olives too, returning from university in Wellington every year to help with the harvest and processing. Last weekend they all threw their annual harvest party, where locals and friends turned up to help pick the last 300kg, followed by a feast and entertainment from the family band, plus a few local musicians.
Helping the Baxendales with this year’s harvest day celebration was Charlie Haskell, the Bay’s other “big” olive grower. He and partner Sheryl Slanders operate ‘The Good Oil’, and have 450 producing olive trees on their hillside block at East Takaka, with another 200 up and coming. Unfortunately, drought and birds hit their grove a little harder than the Baxendales’ this year, but Charlie said he still expected to produce at least 100 litres of oil this year.
It may be a steepish learning curve for those setting up the commercial olive industry in the Bay, but it’s somehow tempting to think a tasty and oily future awaits us all.
Gerard Hindmarsh
