05 Oct

Bell Carter Foods in Corning, CA is bustling

  The olive plant is the largest ripe olive producer in the world. The company processes 52,000 tons of olives a year on average, keeping it's 400 employees hard at work. But this years olive crops are falling a bit short thanks to mother nature. " Weather we're having now can offset next years harvest, [...]

03 Jul

Californian Olive Oil Labels reflect new data

As California’s olive oil industry expands and refines, designations of various grades of oil are becoming more distinct and more identifiable. Consumers will face challenges as they learn to differentiate between extra virgin (high-quality) and oil pressed from the pomace of cull olives. All of the oil is expected to move through one market level [...]

19 Jun

Timbercorp : High costs dampen almond, olive takeovers

The administrator for failed agribusiness giant Timbercorp has been given approval by the Victorian Supreme Court to apply to wind up the company’s olive and almond schemes. KordaMentha wants to end the schemes to make it easier to sell the 13 almond projects and 11 olive groves in northern Victoria. Spokesman Michael Smith says a [...]

17 Jun

Olive growers’ crops looking sparse

By Julie R. Johnson, Officials are scratching their heads as to why this year’s olive crop is the pits. “The crop looked really good early on,” said Doug Compton, assistant commissioner of the Tehama County Agriculture Department. “But then we began hearing reports of poor fruit set from olive growers.” Across the state, Tehama County [...]

19 May

Lindsay Olives seeks sales in snack aisle, too

By David Morrill, Walk down the snack aisle of a local grocery store and you’ll find the usual canisters of peanuts, bags of chips and jars of salsa. If Lindsay Olives has its way, you’ll see their cans of olives as well. Owned by Bell-Carter Foods Inc. of Lafayette, Lindsay Olives is in the process [...]

08 May

Bottler year for WA’s olive oil industry

Olive oil production in WA is set to reach a record 2500 tonnes this year, with an increase in backyard growers keen to produce the golden oil. Producers are bottling the 2009 “vintage” and have said there are not enough presses to cope with supply from growers. Rises in production are being attributed to the [...]

02 May

SOS Cuetara’s top execs fired, shares suspended

by Tracy Rucinski & Rodrigo de Miguel, Spain’s SOS Cuetara (SOS.MC), the world’s biggest olive oil bottler, said on Thursday it had fired its two top executives after discovering last month they had used company funds to buy SOS shares. “SOS Group’s board, which met today, has fired Jesus and Jaime Salazar Bello as chairman [...]

25 Apr

Olive Oil Production Returns to Afghanistan

By Qadeem Weyar, Olive Oil production in Nangarhar restores this product to the country after a decade and half. The factory is reconstructed by the Italian government, funded $800,000 for the project. In addition of the oil, olive soap is also being produced in the factory. The industrial unit is provided with modern equipments and [...]

09 Apr

SOS Cuetara to sell Dante olive oil brand for EUR34m

Food group SOS Cuetara has agreed to sell its olive oil brand Dante and the other brands of its Minerva Oli unit to Italian sector player Mataluni for some EUR34m (USD45.6m). The transaction, scheduled for completion in July, is in line with SOS Cuetara’s disinvestment programme. Dante has annual sales of some 10 million litres [...]

12 Mar

Indigenous olive oil project reaches an ‘interesting stage’

Olive pressing increases 30 times in 10 years! By Joanna Ripard, Retired jeweller Sam Cremona’s brainchild, the Project for the Revival of the Indigenous Maltese Olive (Primo), is at an “interesting stage” and is just three years away from its interim target of 10,000 trees producing the Bidnija olive. “We need to have 30,000 trees [...]

02 Mar

South Australian olive growers to pay new levy

A new levy paid by South Australian olive growers will help promote and further develop the industry. From this harvest, growers will pay a $4 levy on each tonne of fruit they produce. Olives South Australia president Lisa Rowntree says it will increase by a dollar a year for the next three years to eventually [...]

11 Dec

BGU, Beduin make modern olive press

By Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Ben-Gurion University researchers have launched a unique collaboration with Beduin entrepreneurs to develop a modern olive press in the Negev- just in time for the olive harvest. For the past two years, the Beersheba researchers have had professional ties with Negev Beduin in the production of olive oil. The multi-disciplinary BGU team [...]

08 Dec

Croatia’s olive oil producers fight quantity with quality

Croatian olive farmer Sandi Chiavalon has high hopes of taking on the might and quantity of Greece, Italy and Spain with the quality of oil from his groves. The three European giants may account for more than three-quarters of global olive oil production, but Chiavalon is one of many young Croatian entrepreneurs readying their produce [...]

30 Oct

Turning Waste Olive Stones Into Bioethanol

Olive stones (pits) could be the newest ethanol feedstock used in Spain and could give the olive processing industry an opportunity to turn the 4 million tons of olive stones it generates every year into a valuable asset. Researchers from the Universities of Jaén and Granada have now shown how this can be achieved in [...]

16 Sep

Spanish Conquest Squeezes Italian Olive Oil

By Davide Berretta, Over the past five years, Italy’s biggest olive-oil brands have fallen steadily into Spanish hands. SOS Cuétara SA’s July purchase of Bertolli, one of the world’s best-known olive-oil labels, gave the Spanish food company control of half the Italian market and made it the world’s undisputed leader in olive-oil sales. The Spanish [...]