Two Microsoft millionaires cultivate high-end Italian olive oil
By Melissa Allison & Amy Martinez,
This fall during the olive harvest in Italy, Dan McCarthy plans to have about 180 bottles of freshly pressed olive oil shipped by air from the 50-acre Tuscan estate of his former Queen Anne customers, Enzo Schiano and Claire Beliard.
To cover the airfreight, McCarthy & Schiering Wine Merchants will add about $6 to the regular $27 price of a 500-milliliter bottle of Poggio la Noce.
Last year, customers descended on the retailer’s 120 bottles of the “olio nuovo” — new oil — like lovers of French wine greet Beaujolais Nouveau.
Sales of high-end olive oil have slowed, but some Seattleites remain willing and able to pay up for a fresh bottle to drizzle on salads, fresh vegetables and pasta.
Schiano and Beliard, who bought the Italian acreage in 1999 after making millions in marketing and business development at Microsoft, convinced McCarthy that olive oil could be worth a higher price when they brought some Poggio la Noce to Seattle a few years ago.
[Source] Click here to continue
Posted in Business, Europe | U.K, North America, Olive Oil, Olive Tree by: Olives101
Comments Off on Two Microsoft millionaires cultivate high-end Italian olive oil
Australia: Timbercorp olives sold to harvester
By Rachel Hewitt,
The harvesting of Timbercorp’s giant olive crop will resume this morning after the company struck a $15 million deal to sell the fruit to its harvester.
The fate of this year’s crop – at two olive groves in northern Victoria – was uncertain after the company’s April 23 collapse.
The harvest must be completed in seven weeks and Timbercorp does not have the money.
After a day and a half in the Federal Court in a desperate bid to finance the harvest, administrator Mark Korda struck a deal to sell the 2009 olive crop to Boundary Bend – the company that harvests and processes the fruit.
“What Timbercorp and Boundary Bend have agreed and the court has said is non-controversial is that Timbercorp will sell the crop of olives to Boundary Bend for approximately $15.5 million with some rise and fall adjustments later on,” Mr Korda said.
The 6500ha crop will be sold to Boundary Bend for about $26 million, and the harvester will spend about $11 million processing and harvesting it.
Posted in Australia | NZ, Business, Olive Oil, Olive Tree by: Olives101
Comments Off on Australia: Timbercorp olives sold to harvester
Iran interested in Croatian olive oil
Iranian officials have said they are interested in importing olive oil from Croatia, the Croatian Agency for the Promotion of Exports and Investments (APIU) has said.
The announcement came after an eight day official visit to Iran by an APIU delegation where they met Iranian Ministry of Economy officials.
APIU head Slobodan Mikac said both countries pledged to continue economic cooperation.
[Source] Click here
Posted in East | Central Europe, Middle East, Olive Oil by: Olives101
Comments Off on Iran interested in Croatian olive oil
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 tendency for olive trees to fruit fully only every second year as well as better weather. Production last year was just 2000 tonnes.
York Olive Oil Company owner Arnaud Courtin said he had been inundated by small growers wanting distinctive oil made from trees in their backyards. “The smallest batch I’ve made is from 27kg from a tree in the backyard in Dalkeith,” he said. “More and more people are seeing they have an asset in their backyard or front verge.”
The WA Olive Oil Council estimated there were 400 olive oil producers in WA compared with about 10 in 1999. There are about 120 producers in Margaret River, where they have capitalised on the region’s reputation as a mecca for food and wine lovers.
[Source] Click here to continue
Posted in Australia | NZ, Olive Oil by: Olives101
Comments Off on Bottler year for WA’s olive oil industry
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 and deputy chairman,” SOS said in a news release, adding that it had ordered an audit to investigate a holding company set up by the brothers to buy shares.
At the end of March, SOS said that the Salazar brothers had channelled 212 million euros ($282.2 million) of company money into Condor Plus, a holding company which then bought SOS shares in the hope of selling them to a sovereign wealth fund.
Shares in SOS were suspended on Thursday as investors wondered whether the brothers would be forced to sell a large part of their 28 percent stake in SOS which had been put up as collateral for the sovereign wealth deal that has yet to materialise.
Posted in Business, Europe | U.K, Olive Oil by: Olives101
Comments Off on SOS Cuetara’s top execs fired, shares suspended
Copyright © 2026 Olives101.com | Entries 
and Comments