UC Davis Introduces Growing, Milling and Branding Master Class

The UC Davis Olive Center is intro­duc­ing a new class on olive grow­ing, milling, and brand­ing in June, bring­ing expert instruc­tors together for a two-day immer­sion through class­room and field instruc­tion.

The mas­ter class takes place June 8 and 9 in Davis, Calif. Dan Flynn, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Olive Center, said the class was devel­oped in response to requests for such edu­ca­tion.

“We found that there was strong demand for a full day of infor­ma­tion related to every step of olive pro­duc­tion, sup­ple­mented by field dis­cus­sions and demon­stra­tions on a sec­ond day,” said Flynn.

Paul Vossen will lead the first day of class. Vossen will dis­cuss every aspect of the olive grow­ing process, includ­ing sit­ing, vari­eties, plant­ing, irri­ga­tion, fer­til­iza­tion, pest man­age­ment, prun­ing, and har­vest­ing.

The sec­ond day focuses on field­work. Students will visit UC Davis’ Wolfskill orchard, where Vossen and olive tree expert Louise Ferguson will pro­vide hands-on instruc­tion.

As Flynn notes, qual­ity fruit doesn’t auto­mat­i­cally pro­duce qual­ity oil. To study this dynamic, David Garci-Aguirre of Corto Olive Co. will walk stu­dents through the pro­duc­tion vari­ables that affect quan­tity and qual­ity.

The class will con­clude with a brand­ing lec­ture by mar­ket­ing expert Alan Hillburg, who will offer guid­ance about dis­tin­guish­ing a brand from the com­pe­ti­tion.

Hillburg will ​“pro­vide insights of a cal­iber more likely to be acces­si­ble to the Fortune 500,” said Flynn. ​“It is a real coup to be able to con­vey Alan’s remark­able insights to olive grow­ers and proces­sors.”

Registration is open on the UC Davis web­site.