A SPECIAL GROWERS’ REPORT OF AG ALERT ® CALIFORNIA Trees & Vines ®
Visitors at Cobram Estate Olives farm in Woodland stand on top of an olive harvester during the Australian company’s “special VIP tour day” harvest celebration last month.
Aussie olive oil producer expands presence in state By Edgar Sanchez On day four of the nearly nonstop fall harvest at Cobram Estate Olives, a machine roared to life in an orchard near Woodland. produced from its California crop after harvest’s end in late November. With olive production varying between alternating low- and high-harvest years, the company said it hopes to turn out just over a million gallons next year.
Birds scattered in the olive trees lining 130 acres as the slow-moving harvester picked the fruit. Visitors wearing pink safety vests rode on the harvester’s overhead deck to view its handiwork as the 8-ton over-the-row machine performed the work of more than 100 laborers. Each tree briefly found itself in the harvester’s central chamber—roughly 15-feet wide, 14-feet tall—where nylon sabers on either side flicked back and forth, stripping fruit off the branches. The green olives dropped onto conveyor belts for rapid transfer to waiting trucks, ready to deliver the crop to an extra-virgin-olive-oil mill at the com- pany’s Woodland headquarters. At Cobram Estate, immediacy is paramount for producing extra-virgin olive oil. “Our olives go from tree to oil in four to six hours,” said James Clark, Cobram Estate’s vice president of sales and marketing. “Quality is the No. 1 thing we try to focus on.” Cobram is an Australian firm with a presence in California. The company projects a doubling of production from last year, with 450,000 to 500,000 gallons of olive oil
The orchard where the Cobram Estate harvest began is one of several owned by the company in the Woodland area. Comprising about 1,000 acres with more than 150,000 trees, these orchards grow in tandem with another 4,000 acres owned by Northern California farmers contracted by Cobram to create extra-virgin olive oil. The firm’s California production falls under its Cobram Estate USA operations. The state’s No. 1 producer, California Olive Ranch, has 4,600 acres of orchards in Corning, Artois and Oroville, and contracts another 4,000 acres. Chris Zanobini, executive director of the Olive Oil Commission of California, said Cobram now ranks third, behind Stockton-based olive oil producer Corto Olive Co. With its 32 California employees, including five from Australia, Cobram has emerged as a rising player in California olive oil production. In a media and “special VIP tour day” last month, Cobram Estate trumpeted its 2022 harvest, its olive oils
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November 9, 2022 Ag Alert 7
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