Archive for the 'Ecology | Environment' Category

21 Oct

Mechanical table olive harvest: ‘We’re close’

Hand-picking can cost growers more than half of their gross returns By Hank Shaw, A clutch of olive growers stood around a machine that looked like a mobile, padded skateboard ramp attached to a conveyor and armed with a massive pair of grippers. The machine’s grippers grabbed the trunk of an olive tree and began […]

15 Oct

Extra-Virgin Maggoty Oil in California

By Alastair Bland, At Bernardo Winery, one of the oldest olive oil producers in California, oil flow has come to a standstill. While the Rancho Bernardo company has historically produced 300 to 400 gallons of olive oil per year from its 1200 trees, the olive fruit fly, an invasive pest that’s native to Mediterranean Europe […]

08 Oct

Australia Swimming in Low-Grade Olive Oil

Australia is becoming a dumping ground for low-grade olive oil, with no controls on cheap imitations coming in from Europe, experts. Consumer demand for extra virgin olive oil, known to be a “healthy fat”, is soaring in Australia, which has attracted hungry European manufacturers. But some extra virgin olive oil sold here – the majority […]

04 Oct

Lucero Olive Oil to expand in-house operations

By Geoff Johnson, Lucero Olive Oil does just about everything in-house, right down to the label designs. By the end of October, the company will be able to add milling to that list. Using the third Westfalia brand separator to be built in the United States, Lucero will be able to improve the quality of […]

04 Oct

Australian Olive oil fears fruitless

By Leslie White, FEARS growers may have had to rip out a widely planted variety of olives due to poor oil yields appear to have subsided. In 2000, olive growers were worried the manzanillo variety would disappoint growers who had planted it as an oil producer. However, latest figures indicate the mass removal of the […]