NZ olive growers treble crop

By LIAM DANN, primary industries editor

A poor growing season has failed to halt the dramatic expansion of New Zealand's olive industry.

Wet weather in late January and early February slowed fruit growth, knocked oil yields and delayed the harvest by two weeks.

But the final crop, due in this week, should still be nearly three times as large as last year's, says Olives New Zealand head of marketing Graham Harris. The quality of the oil also looks good.

The local industry produced 60,000 litres of oil in 2003 and expectations are that it will more than double that volume this year.

By 2010 it is expected that the industry will have started producing at least a million litres. At that point, Olives New Zealand estimates the sector will be generating sales of about $100 million.

That rapid growth means the biggest challenge the industry faces is not producing the oil, but selling it.

In the next few years sales will be generated by displacing imported oils in the local market rather than by exporting, Harris said.

"First of all we see the domestic market as a huge untapped market," he said.

"The general public in New Zealand are adventurous when it comes to trying things - look at coffee, it's a religion now."

There was plenty of scope to educate the public about the attributes of quality oil, he said.

Olives New Zealand has commissioned research to find out the barriers and misconceptions that the public hold.

Once that's finished a co-ordinated marketing campaign will get under way later this year.

"For the last few years the industry has been concentrating on how to grow trees well and how to get really good fruit," Harris says.

Much to the surprise of many around the world, growing top-quality oil in New Zealand has not been difficult.

It has long been assumed that New Zealand did not have enough sunshine to grow olives, Harris says.

Consequently there were few attempts to grow them here until about 20 years ago.

But for once New Zealand's lack of ozone and the high radiation levels in our sunshine has had an upside.

It was discovered that even on grey days our sunlight provided more than enough radiation for olives.

Combined with fertile soil, that gives the fruit an extremely strong fruity flavour, Harris said.

Evidence of the quality can be seen in the results that New Zealand oils achieved at an international competition in May.

All 16 New Zealand oils entered in the Olive Oils of the World Show at the Los Angeles County Fair won medals. The results included 11 gold medals, four silver and a bronze.

By comparison, Australia, which has an olive oil industry decades older and produces 10 times our volumes, took home only three medals,

Rose Gresson, who co-owns Telegraph Hill Olive Oils in Hawkes Bay, was one of the winners.

She has just started pressing the crop from the 2000 trees on her property.

Gresson, who won a silver medal at the Los Angeles competition, said that as far as she knows there is still no one in the industry making a living solely from their olives.

Telegraph Hill is putting more emphasis on producing pickled olives than it is on oil, she said.

Until local consumers develop a more sophisticated taste for quality oils it will be hard to sell large volumes locally.

Despite its international success Telegraph Hill will produce just 1000 litres of oil this year.

Ultimately the answer will be to develop export markets for New Zealand oil, Harris said.

But before that can happen there needs to be enough volume to generate economies of scale.

While New Zealand oil will always be pitched at the niche, premium end of the market, production costs need to come down before it can be internationally competitive.

That is beginning to happen as growers increasingly pool their resources for processing, Harris said.

Olives New Zealand is focused on promoting that kind of industry co-operation.

NZ olive industry:

* Set to produce more than 120,000 litres of oil in 2004.

* Oil production set for an eightfold increase in six years.

* Industry worth $100 million by 2010.