Page 36 - Food&Drink Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

FRESH PRODUCE
From tree to table
Aussie olive producers chalked up 2018 as one of the toughest seasons on record but interest in Australian-produced table olives is giving boutique olive farmers hope for the future. Margaret Megard reports.
SMALL can be good for Australian growers, especially those that can capture the hearts of gourmet produce consumers. The reward for success that boutique olive farmers Leon and Imogen Bettio reaped through hard work and attention to detail is a Gold Medal at the 2018 Australian International Olive Awards.
Leon and Imogen Bettio of Elisi Grove in the Adelaide Hills have eight hectares of trees. There are around 900 olive growers in Australia but only about 21 of those are considered large scale with more than 80 hectares.
“Our grove is situated on a gentle slope of loam over limestone east of the Adelaide Hills along the banks of the Murray River in Woodlane, South Australia,” Imogen Bettio says.
“We have five different varieties of olives – Kalamata, Signore, Koroneiki, Corotina and Frantoio – from a total of 4112 trees.”
The 2018 harvest was especially rewarding with Elisi Grove awarded a Gold Medal in Class 14 at the Australian International Olive Awards for its Kalamata olives in unpasteurised brine. Among the judge’s comments were ‘good appearance, big size, no blemishes, good fruity olive aroma, good firm texture, great balanced flavour’.
5%
OF AUSTRALIAN OLIVE PRODUCTION IS SOLD AS TABLE OLIVES
The Australian table olive market is dominated by imports from the Mediterranean region where most of the world’s olives are grown. Spain and Greece supply 80 per cent of the Australian market with Australia a very small but very
high-quality producer of olives on a global scale.
About 95 per cent of Australian production is crushed to produce high- quality extra virgin olive oil while the remaining five per cent is sold as table olives with most bought by the domestic market in food service, retail, farmers markets and online direct from producers. Australian Olive Oil Association CEO Greg Seymour says there is currently renewed interest and excitement in Australian-produced olives in the food service market.
“Australia is a high cost producer, so the focus is on high-quality product that leverages provenance and natural fermentation which is underpinned by great flavours and a mixture of varieties,” Seymour says.
TRADITIONS RUN DEEP
The Bettios bought their nine-hectare olive grove from a traditional Italian farmer, now
in his 70s, but still keen to pass on his knowledge to the grove’s new owners.
Leon’s father owns Rio Vista Olives at Mypolonga, which has a press and a grove in Mount Torrens, in the Adelaide Hills. With his encouragement and advice from the former owner of the grove, Leon left his architecture career behind him and he and Imogen took the plunge as olive farmers.
“Leon comes from an Italian background so each year his family would go into the Adelaide Hills and pick the wild olives, take them to a mill and have them crushed – so he grew up with olive oil being a staple,” Imogen says.
As a relatively new business, the owners say there have obviously been challenges but that as a long-term project, they believe the hard work is already starting to pay off.
“We are really happy with our initial results. We love the flavours of our oils and olives, have won gold medals and get
36 | Food&Drink business | January-February 2019 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au