Is American Olive Oil About to Have Its Moment?

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MachineGhost
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Is American Olive Oil About to Have Its Moment?

Post by MachineGhost » Fri Apr 15, 2016 12:36 pm

[quote=http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016- ... olive-oil/]Across the Atlantic, however, an 18-year-old company called California Olive Ranch is upsetting tradition and muscling into the ancient industry by fixing the tree itself.

The company’s 2,200-acre orchard, an hour north of Sacramento, is an industrial marvel. The 1.3 million trees there are more like bushes, 6 to 10 feet tall and planted in neat, tight rows. The density lets a two-story mechanical harvester straddle the trees and strip away the olives to a conveyor that drops them into a truck, which delivers them to an on-site mill that can press 3,200 gallons of oil an hour. No olive is touched by hand. California Olive Ranch, a privately held company, estimates it accounted for 65 percent of the olive oil produced in the U.S. in 2015.

Traditionalists sneer at the idea of factory farming in the world of olives. “Some people wonder whether the olive oil produced from these kinds of trees will have such an appealing and varied taste,” says Jean-Louis Barjol, executive director of the International Olive Council (IOC), a Madrid-based organization that represents the primarily Mediterranean producers accounting for 98 percent of world output. “It is rather a question of specialized vs. commodity product.”

Gregory Kelley, chief executive officer of California Olive Ranch, says it’s the mainstream sellers that need to defend the quality of their products. Europeans, he says, have long sold their dregs to unsophisticated Americans, like jug winemakers did in the 1970s. In a strategy said to be either self-defeating or brilliant, depending on who’s talking, Kelley often rails about what he calls the olive industry’s dirty secrets. He says much of the so-called extra-virgin oil sold in the U.S. is of unreliable provenance: adulterated with cheaper oils, processed with excessive heat that strips out healthful properties, or flawed by sloppy harvesting that can cause fermented or rancid-tasting oil. “In food service, it’s a cost center, so there’s pressure even in fine restaurants to buy crappy olive oil,” Kelley says.[/quote]
Last edited by MachineGhost on Fri Apr 15, 2016 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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dragoncar
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Re: Is American Olive Oil About to Have Its Moment?

Post by dragoncar » Fri Apr 15, 2016 1:51 pm

I get this stuff from Costco, after reading the Davis study that showed significant adulteration in imported olive oils.  They only have the garlic infused type, so I'm not sure if that adds other problems. But I love the flavor.
bedraggled
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Re: Is American Olive Oil About to Have Its Moment?

Post by bedraggled » Fri Apr 15, 2016 4:02 pm

I heard that much imported olive oil is mixed with soybean oil  before shipment.

Apparently a quart of the real thing costs $8 and up and that it tastes like real olive oil.

A sale price of $7 per gallon might be suspect.
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Re: Is American Olive Oil About to Have Its Moment?

Post by jafs » Fri Apr 15, 2016 5:04 pm

I tried the COR stuff a couple of times, but didn't love it.

The book about EVOO was discouraging, for sure.  I'd be happy to see some sort of regulations/inspections to make sure you're getting what's advertised.

We've been getting the store brand premium EVOO, and it's pretty good, although I haven't tested it - maybe we'll see if we can do that sometime.

There's a boutique shop downtown that has very good stuff, and test reports to prove it's really what it's supposed to be, but of course it's a lot more expensive.
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Re: Is American Olive Oil About to Have Its Moment?

Post by WildAboutHarry » Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:14 pm

The Bloomberg graphics are a bit suspect.  A casual glance suggests that Alaska is also in the olive oil business.
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Re: Is American Olive Oil About to Have Its Moment?

Post by drumminj » Fri Apr 15, 2016 9:59 pm

A restaurant near us has olive oil we've really enjoyed with bread.  When I asked, the server shared it's Corto, from California.

No clue if the olives/oil comes from the company mentioned in the initial article, but it's very tasty, and you can find it on Amazon.
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