Page 12 - Food & Drink Business August 2018

✷ RISING STAR
✷ MARKET TESTING MOLIVES ON
THE MOVE
Mo Amin and his Molives team have a few exciting endeavours they’re working on at the moment.
“We’re looking at the export market and working with a local Australian wine manufacturer to couple single-serve wine with single-serve olives,” Amin says. “This exciting new product is very
different, however, from our usual olives. They will be 100 per cent
Australian-grown, going back to my initial dream of
helping farmers. And we’re going to take these
olives and do something
magical with them.”
Though he doesn’t reveal all the
details, Amin does share some hints: that it’ll
probably be “similar to popcorn”, and that it will be quite different to appeal to the Asian
consumer market.
“We’re modifying the olives to
satisfy their palate,” he says. “And we’re crafting this ‘secret’ olive to complement the wines.”
Amin has already launched the product at the markets.
“The new product has been quite successful at the market level.
“They’re amazing, because they keep us grounded and keep us testing products. That’s where we perfect them. ”
As for the wider release, Amin is hoping for the big reveal this year. “There’s obviously a lot of paperwork,” he says. “We’re just sending samples now to the right parties. We’re trying to see whether it will be successful in the international arena.”
because you’re going to be on the shelves,” he says.
Using this packaging format meant Molives could remove the liquid and reduce the salt. But again, sourcing the right equipment for pouches – rather than tubs – proved tricky.
“There are so many solutions that could’ve been cheaper, more cost-effective, faster,” Amin says.
“Again, it goes back to our point of difference, to our core values. So we made decisions based on the product quality we want.”
Molives’ food-manufacturing processes are actually fairly standard for the industry, Amin says. The difference is in the techniques required to produce an olive that, although it may come in a pouch, is as fresh and tasty – if not better – than a deli olive, he adds.
“For us, the focus was to deliver that quality olive without all the other fuss – the liquids, the oils, the salts – that olives usually have,” he says.
“It’s not really always about the fastest or the most cost- effective machinery.”
Developing his own processes took Amin two years. A major part of the struggle, he says, was finding a food technologist to work with.
THE NUMBER OF TABLE OLIVE PRODUCERS IN AUSTRALIA
“Most of the food technologists around Australia are dairy or meat-focused, because obviously they’re bigger industries than olives.”
Another key element was shelf life. Molives’ shelf life is seven months, but Amin is quick to point out that it’s not because the product goes off after this time.
Mo Amin has built the Molives brand from the ground up, differentiating in the market with pouches instead of jars.
“In our experience, seven months is the prime period for that really delicious and good-quality olive that we’d like all our customers to experience,” he says.
“So we’ve decided not to push for the 12 or 18 months to satisfy retail-market demands.”
Shelf life was also part of the decision not to go with a contract packer, Amin says.
“With contract packing, you’ve got to do a minimum – a certain volume – to make it worthwhile for the contract packer.
“So you start to run into shelf life issues. But because we’re from the ground up, we just produce to order. We’re not making thousands of olive pouches and just waiting for a customer to take them, and we’re not loading our customers with thousands of units for them to sell.”
Molives pouches are currently sold at markets and wineries, and on airlines and cruise ships, with more opportunities on thehorizon. ✷
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12 | Food&Drink business | August 2018 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au