Award-Winning Producer Sees a Bright Future for South African Olive Oils

A series of tri­umphs at local and global olive oil qual­ity com­pe­ti­tions, includ­ing two Gold Awards at the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, has bol­stered Mardouw Olive Estate’s ambi­tions.

“Winning awards eased our abil­ity to reach the national South African mar­ket through the major retail­ers of the coun­try,” Philip King, Mardouw Olive Estate gen­eral man­ager, told Olive Oil Times. ​“Now we are actively explor­ing export oppor­tu­ni­ties.”

Initially, the estate, located in the Western Cape province, was ded­i­cated to wine-mak­ing. However, olive cul­ti­va­tion started to take root after the prop­erty changed hands in 2002.

“Thanks to the sup­port of the agri­science fac­ulty of Stellenbosch University, we were able to iden­tify which olive tree cul­ti­vars were best suited for our cli­mate,” King said.

The cli­mate in the Western Cape province, South Africa’s most south­west­ern province, is often described as a Mediterranean cli­mate due to its hot, dry sum­mers and cool, wet win­ters.

Additionally, the province boasts many dif­fer­ent micro­cli­mates, pri­mar­ily due to the influ­ences of the Atlantic and Indian oceans, which meet on the province’s south­ern shores.

“This char­ac­ter­is­tic cli­mate has led the vast major­ity of South African olive oil pro­duc­ers to estab­lish their home here since sev­eral dif­fer­ent olive cul­ti­vars thrive in these con­di­tions,” King said.

Approximately 95 per­cent of the coun­try’s pro­duc­ers are in the Western Cape.

Now, Mardouw’s agron­o­mists grow widely known vari­eties such as Frantoio, Favolosa (Fs-17), Coratina, Nocellara, Mission and Kalamata. Overall, the estate is home to more than 50,0000 olive trees.

“Our extra vir­gin olive oils tend to be robust prod­ucts,” King said. ​“But we also pro­duce an extra vir­gin olive oil halfway between del­i­cate and medium.”

However, the sub­tle dif­fer­ences among Mardouw prod­ucts, which are sig­nif­i­cant to olive oil enthu­si­asts and pro­fes­sional tasters, may some­times be missed by the aver­age South African con­sumer.

“The South African con­sumer, on aver­age, is still highly une­d­u­cated about high-qual­ity olive oil,” King said. ​“That is also why we con­stantly work to inform the con­sumer.”

King added that there had been some improve­ment in con­sumer aware­ness over the years. Still, the chal­lenge for high-qual­ity pro­duc­ers in the coun­try remains in dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing their prod­ucts from cheaper, imported olive oils. King said this is cru­cial to set a fair price for South African pro­duc­ers.

“We go as far as putting the acid­ity lev­els of our extra vir­gin olive oils on our labels and keep remind­ing peo­ple always to ver­ify that what they buy truly ful­fills the min­i­mum require­ments for extra vir­gin olive oil,” King said.

As in many other mar­kets, grow­ing aware­ness about olive oil’s health ben­e­fits has been one of the dri­ving fac­tors behind improv­ing qual­ity. ​“There is still a lot of work to do,” King said.

King expects the har­vest to begin this year in the first week of April. ​“That is when we plan to start the har­vest,” he said. ​“From the first day, all the hand-picked olives are trans­formed with state-of-the-art tech­nolo­gies and stored in steel con­tain­ers.”

Next, the estate’s expert blender eval­u­ates the qual­ity and the char­ac­ter­is­tics of each olive oil vari­etal. Based on this analy­sis, the com­pany decides which blends it will make.

“While we work to obtain a prod­uct with cer­tain char­ac­ter­is­tics, our blend will be dif­fer­ent every year, based on how the sea­son went,” King said.

It is still too early for Mardouw’s experts to esti­mate how the new crop year will be. ​“Summer at the moment is unfold­ing and is very hot; we even had a cou­ple of days over 40 ºC,” King said.

While the coun­try expe­ri­enced drought for sev­eral years before 2020, the cur­rent sea­son will unlikely be impacted by water scarcity.

In the high-den­sity olive groves man­aged by the farm, fer­til­iza­tion and irri­ga­tion are of the utmost impor­tance. However, dur­ing the recent drought, water avail­abil­ity for irri­ga­tion was con­se­quently reduced. ​“Having suf­fi­cient water is prob­a­bly our num­ber one pri­or­ity,” King said.

Last crop year, the farm had a bumper olive har­vest, which resulted in a record olive oil yield. ​“We pro­duced 55,000 liters of olive oil,” King said.

While there are no sig­nif­i­cant agro­nomic chal­lenges, such as pathogens that might dam­age the trees or impact the yield, one of the keys to Mardouw’s qual­ity is the con­stant mon­i­tor­ing of the trees.

“That allows us to promptly inter­vene when­ever we see a tree is not far­ing as expected,” he said.

Given the high num­ber of pro­duc­ers in the region, Mardouw Olive Estate and its peers col­lab­o­rate for the har­mo­nious devel­op­ment of the sec­tor, which resulted in the cre­ation of the South Africa Olive Industry Association.

“I think olive grow­ing is the one indus­try where the pro­duc­ers tend to stick together,” King said. ​“We are gov­erned by the asso­ci­a­tion, of which I am also a board mem­ber.”

Activities car­ried on by the asso­ci­a­tion and its mem­bers include train­ing pro­grams for grow­ers. ​“We do work­shops or sem­i­nars on the most rel­e­vant top­ics. Most grow­ers will take a day or two off their work to be updated or to refresh notions on a spe­cific mat­ter,” King said.

He added that local pro­duc­ers col­lab­o­rate for the com­mon good, includ­ing tast­ing events and reg­u­lar meet­ings where new ideas are shared.

“I think it is sig­nif­i­cant,” King con­cluded. ​“South Africa might have a small com­mu­nity of pro­duc­ers, but it is a com­mu­nity which works together.”