YOUR INDUSTRY
An Adventure in Olives “This is our first ever season in olives — and it’s been initiation by fire.” By Wendy Laurenson In mid-March Chris Kaye and Nicole Alexander were gearing up for the first harvest season on their newly purchased olive orchard in Hihi, Northland. Chris says, “We were about to start picking and processing 12 acres of olives and the previous owner and their Italian mentor were set to come and coach us through it…then Covid-19 happened. We were up for an adventure in olives, but we never imagined this.” However, Chris and Nicole not only made it through their first olive season but have harvested and processed a bumper crop with a high oil yield. “The dry winter and hot dry summer were perfect for olives. We picked 15 tonnes of olives and achieved 3,000 litres of oil, so we’ve done the hard yards now with a very steep learning curve.” Chris and Nicole were ready for a change from their life in Gisborne and were on a road trip last year looking for possible options when they first saw the property. “We came here for two hours and stayed for three days,” Chris says. “We were open to anything anywhere, but ironically I was terrified of horticulture. In my twenties I’d seen horticulture friends of my parents become broken old people, and I didn’t want to go there. My background was in farming before going to sea and I’m now with Eastland Port Ltd in Gisborne commuting there week-on week-off for my job as marine manager and pilot.” 48
The ORCHARDIST : AUGUST 2020
Nicole‘s background is in administration. “The appeal of this property was that the previous owners had set it up from scratch with a high spec, so it was purpose built to grow, harvest and process olives. The site also happens to look out over Doubtless Bay and has an established Airbnb for added income.” Chris and Nicole are both keen foodies but had no previous experience with growing olives, so they immersed themselves in research before taking over the property last October. “We spent the first few months getting familiar with the place, and we’d been advised to pick very early when the crop is a third red, a third yellow and a third green. This results in strong flavoured oil which can mellow out over time, whereas oil from overripe fruit will never develop flavour.” Harvest during Covid-19 “Covid lockdown coincided exactly with our picking start and took out our carefully set-up transition support plan, so we reached out to a local mechanic who had worked with the gear and the previous owners,” Nicole recounts. “He came and steered us through the process and we applied to the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to register as a food processor so we could work through lockdown. The previous owners were on call at the end of the phone.” Chris and Nicole employed four local pickers for three weeks and they worked in teams of two from the same bubbles.
