New code of practice for Australian olive producers
A small country of boutique olive growers cannot win a price war against imported olives. So Australia’s producers did something smarter — they wrote a code of practice and a certification trustmark, betting that guaranteed quality and honest labelling would beat cheapness. It is a model worth understanding.
Australia grows olives, but it will never be Spain. Its industry is young, small and largely boutique — family groves and mid-size producers rather than a sea of subsidised hectares. Faced with a flood of cheap imported table olives and oil, often of dubious grade, Australian producers made a clever strategic choice: rather than compete on price, which they would lose, they competed on trust. A voluntary code of practice and a certification trustmark became their way of saying, in effect, ‘ours is verifiably what it claims to be — is theirs?’
What a code of practice actually does
For table olives, the industry worked with the food regulator to draft a code built on the Codex Alimentarius international standard — the global reference for what a table olive is and how it should be handled. The code sets rules across the whole chain: planting, growing, harvesting, transport, processing, packing and storage. On the oil side, a parallel certification scheme lets a producer put a trustmark on the bottle guaranteeing the oil is genuine extra virgin, made to standard, and Australian. The point is not bureaucracy for its own sake; it is a signal a shopper can actually see.
Why the label matters more than you think
Here is the trade reality the trustmark answers. ‘Product of Australia’, ‘Made in Australia’ and ‘Packed in Australia’ are three very different claims, and cheap imported oil is routinely bottled or blended in the destination country and dressed up to look local. A robust certification scheme cuts through that fog: it ties the claim to an audited chain, so ‘Australian extra virgin’ means what it says rather than ‘foreign oil that touched an Australian factory’. The same trick — a foreign bulk oil wearing a local-looking coat — is played in every olive-importing country on earth, which is exactly why homegrown industries reach for certification.
The catch for the grower
None of this is free. A small boutique grower already carries high costs — hand-or-machine harvesting a modest crop, small-batch processing — and a code adds paperwork, audits and fees on top. That is the honest tension: certification is how a small quality industry defends itself, but it also raises the cost of being small and legitimate, while the cut-corner importer it is defending against pays none of it. For the shopper the lesson is simple and cheering: when you pay a little more for a certified local extra virgin, a real chunk of that premium is buying you traceability you cannot get from an anonymous bottle.
| Label claim | What it really means | Trust level |
|---|---|---|
| Product of Australia | Grown and made in Australia | High |
| Made in Australia | Substantially transformed here — may use imported oil | Medium |
| Packed in Australia | Only bottled here; oil could be anything | Low |
| Certified extra virgin (trustmark) | Audited to standard, genuine grade | Highest |
| Industry | Young, small, boutique |
|---|---|
| Table-olive code | Built on Codex Alimentarius standard |
| Scope | Planting to storage, whole chain |
| Oil scheme | Certification trustmark on the bottle |
| Problem it solves | Cheap imports dressed as local |
| Trade-off | Adds cost to small legitimate producers |
Buying certified olives and oil
- Read the country claim carefully — ‘packed in’ is not ‘product of’.
- Look for a certification trustmark, not just a flag or a gum-tree on the label.
- Accept that local certified oil costs more — much of that premium is real traceability.
- Apply the same scepticism anywhere: the ‘foreign bulk in a local coat’ trick is universal.
Australian olive standards: common questions
Why did Australia create an olive code of practice?
Its small boutique industry could not beat cheap imports on price, so it competed on trust instead — a voluntary quality code and certification to prove its olives and oil are genuinely what they claim.
What is Codex Alimentarius?
The international food-standards reference. Australia’s table-olive code adopts the Codex standard for what a table olive is and how it should be safely produced and handled.
What is the difference between ‘Product of’ and ‘Packed in’ Australia?
‘Product of Australia’ means grown and made there; ‘Packed in Australia’ can mean only bottled locally, with the oil itself imported. The claims carry very different levels of trust.
Is certified Australian oil worth the higher price?
Often, yes — a good part of the premium buys audited traceability and a guaranteed grade, which you cannot get from an anonymous or vaguely-labelled bottle.
Does this problem exist outside Australia?
Everywhere. Bottling or blending cheap foreign oil in the destination country and dressing it to look local is a universal trick, which is why homegrown industries lean on certification.
A small olive country can never out-cheap the importers, so Australia did the smart thing and competed on trust instead — a code built on the Codex standard and a certification stamp you can actually see. What it really defends against is the oldest trick in the trade: foreign bulk oil bottled locally and dressed up as homegrown, where ‘packed in’ quietly stands in for ‘product of’. Read the country claim, hunt for a real trustmark not a gum-tree logo, and accept that the extra you pay for certified local oil is mostly buying you traceability the anonymous bottle can’t.
Drawn from background on the Australian Olive Association’s table-olive code and Codex Alimentarius; the specific announcement was a dated news item.