Olive business
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Best Practice Series Michael Southan, AOA OliveCare® Administrator
The OliveCare® program is all about helping olive producers achieve quality. With that aim, the Best Practice Series of articles discusses how to increase the yield of premium EVOO through best practice management strategies from the grove to the consumer.
Managing risk Olive producers face many kinds of risk that need to be managed at an enterprise level. They range across most aspects of an olive business, including: Productivity: the inability to harvest or process the crop; reduced crop load; reduced crop value; high costs of production – resulting in declining enterprise profitability. Product quality: downgraded quality; defective products – resulting in loss of consumer demand, confidence and reputational damage. Food safety: exceeding pesticide maximum residue levels
(MRLs); physical, chemical and biological contamination; product adulteration – requiring product recall, and results as above. Biosecurity: incursion of endemic (established), and exotic (not yet here) pests, diseases and weeds – resulting in higher production costs, reduced yields and low profitability, or worse (e.g. tree removal and destruction, in the case of Xylella fastidiosa). Environmental: managing waste including processing waste discharge; adapting to increasing climate variability – resulting in higher production costs, reduced yields and profitability. Regulatory: Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S) issues such as unsafe workplaces, employment of illegal workers - resulting in prosecution and reputational damage.
OliveCare® checklist for ‘Enterprise Sustainability Best Practice’.
*Note: several of these are critical items that have caused many growers grief during the 2021 season. Productive and profitable farms Implement world best practice business management: • Participate in the OliveCare® Best Practice Program • Build skills, capacity, knowledge, leadership and professionalism in the industry: » train staff to lift productivity, comply with OH&S practices, meet food safety and food quality requirements. • Benchmark grove performance - set KPIs for grove productivity and profitability: » grove productivity KPIs: kg/tree, tonnes/ha; » cost of production - cost $/tonne; » gross margin - $/ha. • Benchmark processing performance - set KPIs for processing productivity: » processing efficiency KPIs: L oil/tonne; » cost of production - cost $/L or $/kg. • Benchmark product quality - enter olive products in the AIOA and other competitions: » shoot for Gold. • Invest in your business to manage risk, including capacity to protect, harvest and process your crop. • Ensure written commercial service and supply contractual arrangements are in place. • Keep your business cybersecurity safe. • Deploy innovative technologies to increase competitive advantage and profitability for olive growers, including plant breeding, tree physiology and best practice management. • Explore value-adding opportunities - olive crop and by-products. • Prepare business development and succession plans, and explore alternative business models for small producers.
Learning from experience Changes in climate are seeing more producers invest in frost fans to minimise the risk of crop damage or destruction. 44 • Australian & New Zealand Olivegrower & Processor • March 2022 • Issue 123
During the 2021 olive harvest/processing season, due to the extra-large crops in many groves, harvesting and processing supply constraints were unfortunately experienced. These resulted in many
