JAN WHYTE & NIALL HOLLAND Old French Road

Jan Whyte and Niall Holland are partners and owners of Old French Road, the New Zealand-based olive grove and oil company based in the Banks Peninsula.

Whyte had always envisioned the area as having great potential for olive growth.

When considering retirement from their long-term careers as general practitioners in Christchurch, the pair came across the opportunity to purchase the Old French Road, with decade-long established trees.

“We naively jumped in feet and all,” said Holland.

With a grove of 1,100 trees, 50 percent are Frantoia, a popular and more mildly flavoured oil, and the rest is a mixture of Kalamata, Manzanilla, Picholine, Uovo di Pigeoni, and Sevillano.

“As you might see, we have many table olive varieties and harvest these for table olives and oil.”

Whyte and Holland are in it for their shared love of high-quality oil rather than profit, with Holland adding that the pair are in the fortunate position to think this way. This is why

Old French Road oils are submitted for award ceremonies yearly. In the 12 harvests the pair have produced, they have earned approximately 50 awards, including best boutique oil and several gold medals.

The Old French Road sets an excellent example of controlling the whole process from hand harvesting to processing and packaging, as it has its press on site and does its bottling and packaging.

As a hillside planted grove, Whyte and Holland said that this makes harvesting more problematic as it is a winter harvest when the ground is liable and wet, with groves of similar size usually contracting harvesting and tree shakers, who would not be able to cope with Old French Road’s terrain. To reduce the risk of slippage on the steep slopes, the pair have planted native New Zealand trees.

“However, the hills and proximity to the sea mean that we do not have to worry about crop loss due to frost as is a risk in much of Canterbury. It is also a marginal climate for oil production, which greatly enhances flavours.”

Under stress, trees (grapes and many other fruits) generally produce more complex and exciting flavours. Whyte and Holland detailed two intensive periods each year. The first is the harvest, which is done between late May and August, followed by pruning.

For the rest of the year, there is grove maintenance with periodic spraying to prevent fungal and to keep the grass down. At Old French Road, the grass is mowed as the pair prefers this aesthetic.

The most brutal harvest for Whyte and Holland was their second, where there was a combination of inadequate prior pruning, terrible weather and hungry birds, which led to minimal crop.

The best year coincided with the first year of Old French Road having its press, four harvests ago, which was a steep and rapid learning curve, which immediately followed the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant that the person who would usually demonstrate the operation of the press was no available to travel from Australia to teach Whyte and Holland, and to top it off, the instructions were all in Italian.

“There was a huge amount of fruit to be processed. You could say it was our best and worst year.”

The pandemic also drove a significant increase in sales for Old French Road, as people have opted for locally crafted oil options.

As the environment has warmed and gotten wetter, Whyte and Holland said that the focus would be on controlling fungal disease, which puts heavy emphasis on pruning to very open trees. Contrary to this, warmer and sunnier climates will favour the pair, with increased oil percentages in olives.

Old French Road oils are sold at local Christchurch retail outlets, high-end restaurants, and sporadic amounts for overseas markets.

“Unfortunately, the high costs of freight tend to make this uneconomic. We have had an American buyer, with interests in New Zealand, who has delicatessens on the West Coast of the US take caseloads back as checked luggage. We have also had regular orders from Superyachts calling into New Zealand.”

With both Whyte and Holland in their 70s, the most significant challenge moving forward is making the business and practices as age compatible as possible. If the pair were to plant an olive grove, they would combine Frantoia and Nocellara, their favourite varieties.

Holland concluded that Canterbury and much of New Zealand produce olive oil of the highest standards by any international measure. The industry is a cottage one, and without the dedication of oil lovers such as Whyte and Holland, it will struggle to survive, which would be a great pity as it is an exceptional product, as gold medals in the New York Olive Oil Competition have repeatedly shown.