About Us

Our Commitment

‘Do please taste’ –  Since we started as stallholders on the first day of Canberra’s prestigious and authentic farmers market, we have sought to develop our range of olive products to reflect what our customers want.  

Commencing with a rather bitter local olive oil which in those early days was a blend of several local groves – at that time none of us had enough on our own – we realised that we had to be more sensitive to our customers palates and provide products that more correctly reflected their needs. So as our grove production rose, we asked customers for feed-back, took experimental products, especially new flavoured oils, to meetings of Slow Food Canberra and asked for the expert opinion of foodies, chefs and critics.

In a commitment to quality, we became signatories to the Australian Olive Industry Code of Practice for Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Through this we can demonstrate to customers that our Extra Virgin Oils are the real thing! We also entered our products in Fine Food and Olive Competitions, and over the past few years have achieved many Best of Show trophies as well as over lots and lots of medals.  
Nice to be asked by farmers market customers ‘...now which ones scored the medals this year?’

Our core Olive Oil products are a medium/mild Extra Virgin oil (Homeleigh Grove) and a more robust one (Lowanna’s Paddock – called after a pony with a spicy character!). Infused (flavoured) oils include Garlic, Lemon Myrtle, Blood Orange, Basil & Garlic, Rosemary & Thyme, White Truffle, Wild Lime & Chilli and Chilli & Garlic.

The 
Grove

Planting commenced with about 125 trees in 1999 and has continued with some new plantings most years. The Grove now comprises about 2,000 trees.

The Grove has been the site for several demonstrations, including the Australian Olive Expo’s “Farm Walk” for several years when 200 growers came to see demonstrations of the latest harvesting and grove management equipment.

Most trees are for oil production, but about 150 trees were specifically planted for table fruit. These include Manzanilla, Azapa, Sevillano, Koroneiki, Benito and Verdale and more recently and Kalamata. The table olives must be carefully hand-picked to avoid bruising.

A lonely Manzanilla olive tree which was planted about 1990 was mowed while quite small. In spite of this treatment, this tree today can yield 20 to 35kg fruit each year. 

Why 
Olives

Olives tend to do well in the same regions as wines. Initially we looked at a wide range of products, but narrowed it down to olives on the basis that the industry was effectively in its infancy in Australia in the mid-1990s and about 95% of olives and olives oils consumed in Australia was imported. 

On the basis that our soils, topography, water supply etc seemed suitable we decided to give olives a try.  

Looking back at all the predictions and published information at the time, like so much promotional material, it was totally over optimistic in terms of how soon the trees would fruit commercially, volumes per tree and the price of olives. While production was clearly low during the drought years, the structure of the industry has not followed the European tradition of producers being able to sell their fruit to processors. 

The other implication in the early promotional material was that ‘olives are easy’….we have not found out what it is easier than...! There are no teams of pickers for the small groves, though there is an increasing array of mechanical harvesters which will pick olives for oil. But while there is still experimentation with mechanically harvesting table olives, nothing yet beats hand picking. The differences between early expectations and reality would not come as a surprise to anyone involved in the boutique end of the wine industry

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