Panic at the Olive Mill in Provence Fran ce

[rox]

Rox,

You need to set up one of those adventure/working vacations for tourist during picking season. You know, pay a lot of money for the experience of picking olives in France. Fine wine, local cuisine, cooking classes of regional dishes, tours of the area, tour the pressing mill and you go home with a case of olive oil you helped pick. That type of thing is very popular in some circles.

MarkV

Gee wouldn't that be a hoot, people pay us to pick our olives...
I just don't think my husband has the temperment for that. There is a lot to learn and although it is not difficult to learn it I think he is jsut tired of training people from his being many years a chef.

To everyone else I hope you enjoyed the thread and thanks for your comments.

 

[WBWI]

Rox, thanks for the pictures. How do you bottle the olive oil? Do you have any pictures of that operation? The company I work for manufactures bottling equipment for the dairy industry and I'm always interested in how other industries do the packaging.

 

[Tig]

Great story Rox.

 

[pennwalk]

Rox,
I wish I was there to see it all and taste your great olive oil. Thanks for sharing.

Chris

 

[rox]

Rox, thanks for the pictures. How do you bottle the olive oil? Do you have any pictures of that operation? The company I work for manufactures bottling equipment for the dairy industry and I'm always interested in how other industries do the packaging.

If I get a chance when we bottle at the mill and most importantly if I remember to bring the camera I'
ll take some pics. Actually the bottle filling machines don't cost that much. What costs are the capping machines. At home we have a bottle filling machine that works off a vaccuum system. It creates a vaccuum in the bottle and fills until the liquid reaches the point where the filling tube is.

Speaking of bottles here is how the empty bottles for olive oil are stored temporarily. You'll never believe it. They are just stored outside. The pallets are all wrapped in plastic and because every bit of space is needed inside the mill during pressing the bottles are kept outside for a while. And I did think to take a pic of that. Again notice the clear blue sky and what a nice day it would have been to pick olives. Saturday and Sunday were lovely, really lovely days to pick olives. Today is also nice 55f but with a bit of wind. It is harder to work with wind because when you shake the olives off the tree they go flying and don't end up on the nets so you loose olives. Second it is much harder to work with the nets since you are fighting the wind.

 

[rox]

Oh one more thing about the big harvest. There is a sign up at the mill saying that due to the large harvest they will not be buying oil from producers. Well I'm sure they would buy our oil if we were selling it and they will buy oil from a few others but since they have so much oil the smaller farmer who has perhaps 300 or 400 liters of oil as thier main crop is not olives, they are not going to buy from them this year. My husband and I fugured out real quick that we wanted to develope our own brand and not rely on jsut being farmers and selling everything to the mill. Then the mill has you by the short hairs as what are you supposed to do with your oil then? We didn't like the risk of having just one customer, the mill. We worked and developed a good customer base and now we have spread our risk around. We have a good crop and a good amount of oil (or we will when we are done) and we will keep all our oil and not sell any to the mill. This fall we had to tell customers to wait for the new crop as we were out, this year I have added on two really good distributors and so we should be good to go, enough oil and should again be able to sell all our oil independently.

I don't like to be beholding to a mill, if I don't get treated right, if my olives are not pressed right away then I want to be able to go to a mill that will. Our old mill our farmer friend Lucien they ahve not even paid him completely for last years oil! I hated having to beg the mill for our money so we developed our own customers and changed mills. With our new mill we did sell oil to them one year to help defray the cost of the pressing but this year we keep all our oil. When I sold her our oil she opened up her checkbook and paid on the spot! Hey I like that!!! Our milling expense this year is going to be around 10,000 euros. It is a lot more work to go out and find customers for your oil, it is easy to just sell to the mill but I would rather do the work and control our own destiny than be dependent.

I gotta go I won't have any more time to post unless it is real late at night and I'm not to tired so don't feel bad if I dont' relpy. I will when i get a chance.

 

[Bird]

Very interesting and educational, Rox. Thanks for both the information and photos.

 

[dmccarty]

Rox,

Glad to here things are working out and that you will have more oil. We are down to our last bottle so we will have to reorder soon. I knew you did not have a lot of oil this year so I was getting worried about how we would get our fix. We had some of the oil last night on some pasta. Just the oil on the pasta. Smoked some pork loin and had some corn. Put the oil on the corn too.

Yum.

Later,
Dan

 

[AlanB]

Thanks Rox, cool, reminds me an awful lot of the grapes and Wine from SWMBO house.

It is nice to have the times when things do slide your way sometimes.

I would not doubt a bit that what Mark V suggested could work, little marketing, and make it expensive, and honestly what a great opportunity for someone.

Hope it all works out smoothly for you.

 

[denmansoft]

Rox:
How and when can we get some of your oil? Do we have to come over and buy direct from your farm?(maybe spring 2009?) My wife and son are always looking for the best oil they can get. They're the chefs, I just help getting the ingredients and of course, enjoy the results.

Home cooked family dinners in France just blew me away when we were over there!

Ian