Backyard Growers Create Prize-Winning Olive Oil in Australia

Residents of Melbourne, Australia, are hav­ing their back­yard olives pressed together to cre­ate a com­mu­nal extra vir­gin olive oil at an annual fes­ti­val.

The event fea­tures infor­ma­tion stalls and advice on tend­ing to olive trees and has seen almost ten tons of olives pressed since 2018 to cre­ate an extra vir­gin olive oil brand known as 3000acres.

“We’re a part of the big­ger CERES fam­ily, and the 3000 refers to the post­code of Melbourne,” explained Merrin Layden, CERES’s com­mu­nity food sys­tems man­ager, a social enter­prise hub orga­niz­ing the event with 3000acres.

She said the oil had won sil­ver and bronze medals at the Royal Adelaide Show in two con­sec­u­tive years.

Layden said 3000acres encour­ages peo­ple to work together across the city to har­vest olives that may go to waste oth­er­wise.

“The intent of the pro­gram is to enable peo­ple to access olive press­ing by join­ing together with their com­mu­nity,” she said, ​“as most proces­sors have min­i­mum batch size require­ments that indi­vid­u­als oth­er­wise would­n’t be able to meet.”

Once CERES col­lects and weighs par­tic­i­pants’ olives on the day of the fes­ti­val, they are sent to nearby Barfold Olives, a pro­ducer north­west of Melbourne, to be processed. The oil will then be deliv­ered to par­tic­i­pants later this year.

Each participant’s vol­ume of oil will depend on the num­ber of olives they har­vested and other fac­tors, such as olive vari­ety.

Layden said there are many olive cul­ti­vars grown in Melbourne. “[There is] such a huge vari­ety,” she told Olive Oil Times, ​“many planted by Greek and Italian migrants with cut­tings brought from their homes when they arrived decades ago.”

“We have Kalamata, Manzanilla, Frantoio, Cerignola, Gordal, Arbequina and I’m sure so many more,” she added. ​“But the deliv­er­ies are always a mix of sizes, vari­eties, stages of ripen­ing and more.”

The fes­ti­val is held on two dif­fer­ent dates. The first event took place on May 21 in the sub­urb of Brunswick East, and the sec­ond will be held on June 4 in the local Hobsons Bay area.

Backyard olive grow­ers inter­ested in hav­ing their olives processed at the upcom­ing Hobson Bay event must reg­is­ter before June 4 to arrange a time to drop them off.

Bookings are essen­tial and free for res­i­dents of Hobsons Bay and $15 (AUD) for par­tic­i­pants from other areas of met­ro­pol­i­tan Melbourne.

“The aver­age con­tri­bu­tion per book­ing is around 20 to 30 kilo­grams,” Layden said. ​“But we receive as lit­tle as 200 grams handed over by excited chil­dren and as much as 100 kilo­grams har­vested by fam­ily groups or neigh­bors.”

She added they will now be cap­ping peo­ple’s con­tri­bu­tions at 50 kilo­grams per fam­ily, and the olives should not be har­vested before June 2.

“You can pick the olives by hand indi­vid­u­ally or in hand­fuls, shake the branches or use a rake to pull the olives down from the tree,” she said.