Growers win Eclipse grove essentials

 

Olivergrower & Processor’s ‘Choose your Leading Grove Essentials’ competition has been drawn, with two Australian growers now in receipt of valuable grove equipment prize packages provided by Eclipse Enterprises.

Run as part of our 2010 Readership Survey, the competition asked readers to tell us, in 50 words or less, “what changes you believe will occur in the Australian or New Zealand olive industry over the next 10 years”. The winning entries came from growers Wayne Hoare, of Mornington, Victoria, and Lynette and Noel Monro, of Olives on Barrington in Barrington, NSW.

The competition was one of our largest to date, with sponsor Eclipse Enterprises offering each winner a choice of three prize packages: Package 1 – Electromechanical harvesting system, Package 2 – Pneumatic harvesting and pruning system and Package 1 – Filtration and pruning system. Each package is valued at over $2,800.00, so it’s no surprise that over 100 entries were received from new and existing subscribers. There was also a very even distribution between the chosen prize packages, proof of the desirability of all of the equipment choices.

Both Wayne and Lynette chose Package 1, the Alice electronic olive harvester, and their prizes have been delivered swiftly and free of charge by Eclipse Enterprises. For Wayne in particular the timing couldn’t be better, arriving less than two weeks before his scheduled harvest.

“I’m absolutely delighted, not just at winning but at accessing my new equipment right on the verge of harvesting. I’m very much looking forward to using it,” he said.

The Monros expressed a similar sentiment: “It will no doubt be a wonderful and dramatic improvement on the time taken to complete our harvest,” Noel said.

George Atsalis of Eclipse Enterprises said they’d gained some great insight out of the competition entries.

            “Having read through all of this year’s entries, there were several main points that continued to arise,” he said.

“The answers to the ‘Tell us …’ question boiled down to a few highly important topics: public education about olive oil, grove consolidation and the enforcement of accurate labelling regarding imported oils.

“A few notable entries detailed the need for public education on the health benefits of EVOO to avoid a locally-produced oil glut not unlike the one experienced by the wine industry. This, coupled with government enforced testing and strict labelling standards, will eventually lead to a stronger and more diverse Australian olive industry, making room for large, medium and boutique producers to capitalise on local, national and export markets.

“Other points covered included research and development, grove consolidation and marketing – which was also fairly prominent last year – with an emphasis on the importance of the EVOO campaign. By increasing the amount of locally-produced oil that’s consumed, we will have room for many more growers. We have a large industry and that will make it more sustainable.”

George said a number of interesting statistics also arose from the surveys, including the predominance of Frantoio amongst varieties grown.

“We found that well over 50% of growers listed Frantoio and 30% Manzanillo, which lends to the dominance of olive oil producers in Australia,” he said.

“Looking at grove size, 60% had less than 1000 trees and the remainder ranged right up to 100,000 trees. So we really did get answers from across the size range, representing a good cross-section of the industry.

“And one of the most interesting things of all was the distance travelled for processing. More than 50% of oil producers have to travel over 50km to have their olives processed, with one 560km from their nearest processor.

“Overall, the information provided from growers this year gave us an interesting insight into the complexity of our olive industry, and the directions it might take in the future.

“We’d like to thank all the growers who entered the competition and provided us with their thoughts and opinions.”

That goes for the team at Olivegrower & Processor, too. Reader input into the publication is vital to ensure that the content we provide continues to be relevant, informative and interesting to our subscribers. We appreciate all the great ideas you’ve shared, and the time taken to do so.

We also appreciate the ongoing support of Eclipse Enterprises in generously providing such great prizes for our annual reader survey competition.

 

Here are the winning entries, which were judged based on creativity, insight and compliance with competition rules:

 

Wayne Hoare

 

Lynette & Noel Monro

 

Olivegrower & Processor will publish more reader comments and ideas on our website, and in coming editions of our Friday Olive Extracts newsletter. We’ll also make great use of the coverage suggestions provided in the surveys, and will follow up on many of the requested topics and regions.

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