California Table Olive Harvest Exceeds Expectations Despite Pandemic, Wildfires

2020 was a chal­leng­ing year for agri­cul­tural pro­duc­ers around the world. Olive grow­ers in California not only had to con­tend with the var­i­ous chal­lenges asso­ci­ated with the Covid-19 pan­demic, but they also con­fronted record-set­ting wild­fires.

In spite of this, California’s table olive pro­duc­ers are expect­ing a much bet­ter har­vest than pre­vi­ously thought, which has coin­cided with a reported increase in sales.

Dennis Burreson, the vice pres­i­dent of field oper­a­tions and indus­try affairs at Musco Family Olive Company, said his com­pany had to make sev­eral changes to cope with both sets of chal­lenges.

This year’s crop was more than 35,000 tons, accord­ing to John Segale, Burreson’s pub­lic rela­tions rep­re­sen­ta­tive. The num­ber exceeds the 24,000 tons expected by the California Olive Committee and the 30,000 tons antic­i­pated by the United States Department of Agriculture, accord­ing to Burreson. Musco accounts for about 19,500 of that 35,000 tons.

“In 2020, we have seen gro­cery sales up an aver­age of nearly 20 per­cent and even higher for olives,” Burreson told Olive Oil Times. ​“Grocery ana­lysts attribute this to the fact that con­sumers recon­nected with, or dis­cov­ered, a love for cook­ing dur­ing the early months of the pan­demic.”

Musco has worked to meet the increased demand while also keep­ing up-to-date with enhanced safety mea­sures intro­duced as a result of the pan­demic.

Musco Family Olive Company owns its own pro­cess­ing plant in Tracy, about 50 kilo­me­ters east of the San Francisco Bay, and con­tracts with olive grow­ers through­out the state. Burreson said his com­pany has an ​“aggres­sive” approach to fight­ing Covid-19.

“We have con­tin­u­ously evolved our pro­to­cols to address chang­ing con­di­tions and we have repeat­edly gone above and beyond cur­rent gov­ern­ment and indus­try rec­om­men­da­tions,” he said.

“To date, our com­mit­ment and these efforts have proven to be suc­cess­ful in reduc­ing the risk of expo­sure in the work­place,” Burreson added. ​“We have never had to shut down the oper­a­tions dur­ing the pan­demic which has enabled us to keep up with the increased demand of California-grown olives.”

The com­pa­ny’s new rou­tine looks sim­i­lar to that of many other busi­nesses: increased san­i­ti­za­tion, hand­wash­ing, tem­per­a­ture checks and wear­ing masks in the work­place.

“Any infected indi­vid­ual is required to remain iso­lated until their doc­tor has deter­mined they are virus-free and can return to work,” Burreson said. ​“As a safety pre­cau­tion, the com­pany noti­fies employ­ees who had close con­tact with the indi­vid­u­als and sends them home to self-quar­an­tine. Per com­pany pol­icy, those employ­ees may return to work once they have been cleared by pub­lic health offi­cials.”

Despite ini­tial wor­ries about sup­plies, Burreson said that his com­pany was able to get what they needed when the time came to har­vest the crops. He added that the pan­demic affected the com­pany more than the wild­fires.

“Make no mis­take; 2020 is an unfor­get­table year for so many rea­sons,” Burreson said. ​“However, the fires pro­duced poor air qual­ity but resulted in no dam­age to the olives.”

Todd Sanders, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Olive Growers Council of California, said that the pan­demic did cause chal­lenges for some pro­duc­ers, in terms of procur­ing enough N‑95 masks when air qual­ity declined due to the wild­fires. Most were able to get what they needed, he said.

“I don’t think any­body, even the gov­er­nor’s office, could have antic­i­pated a pan­demic and wild­fires would be going on at the same time,” Sanders said.

He also con­firmed the sud­den increase in con­sumer demand for olives this year.

“California can­ners were aggres­sive about get­ting them in front of retail­ers and cus­tomers,” said Sanders, who also acknowl­edged more of an inter­est in buy­ing locally-grown pro­duce.

He said that while the pan­demic was ini­tially a shock in March, grow­ers have adapted and begun to expect changes. Sanders added that those work­ing in agri­cul­tural fields ​“are some of the most adap­tive and cre­ative indus­tries in the world.”

He issued a reminder that behind the pro­duce on store shelves are real peo­ple work­ing in a tough envi­ron­ment.

“It has been hard,” Sanders said. ​“These are farm­ers and grow­ers and they have chil­dren, and they have kids at home and not at school.”

“They have to get the crop off and have to work with work­ers who have kids at home, too. It’s hard and dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate,” he added. ​“And there’s the stress of it, too. California is tak­ing an aggres­sive stance on Covid-19, which is pos­i­tive, but it’s been hard to adapt to.”

Despite a gen­er­ally dif­fi­cult 2020, Burreson remains opti­mistic for the future of his com­pany. He said that Musco plans to not only sur­vive but thrive.

“The key is effi­ciency,” Burreson said. ​“The table olive industry’s tran­si­tion to high den­sity, mechan­i­cally-har­vested and pruned orchards is inevitable given the ear­lier suc­cess in California’s almonds, wal­nut, prune, pis­ta­chio, olives for olive oil and other tree crops.”

“The mod­ern acreage con­fig­u­ra­tion for table olives is like those orchard sys­tems, with increased tree count, effi­cient irri­ga­tion meth­ods, mechan­i­cally adapted spac­ings and tree struc­ture,” he added.

According to Burreson, mod­ern olive groves are planted with about 250 trees per acre (100 trees per hectare) com­pared with the 60 to 80 trees per acre (24 to 32 trees per hectare) that are typ­i­cal of tra­di­tional groves.

“The yield is essen­tially dou­bled per acre which pro­vides improved grower returns and excel­lent effi­cien­cies while greatly reduc­ing har­vest­ing costs,” Burreson said. ​“With the increased yields of mod­ern acreage, this new acreage will not only pro­duce the high­est qual­ity olives in the world but also the most eco­nom­i­cal olives for U.S. con­sumers.”