1976 Olive Oil

Sorry no idea as do not know what profit margin they run on. we produced our own olive oil for the first time this year, very exciting.
Your Canadian price still seems reasonable to the prices they pay in the UK, certainly for good quality Early Harvest Extra Virgin Olive Oil! Have seen some advertised at £10 for 500ml..........liquid gold??

for the equivalent of 3 dollars you could only buy the worst commercial olive oil here... the cost if you buy locally from a home producer is minimum e6 - e 10 per lt... this is olive oil that is first pressed and in general a cold press even though some now use more modern mills to have their oil produced....

what you are buying at 3 dollars is at least second pressed and factory produced....you cannot buy what is true first pressed virtually green in color and thick as syrup oil for less than the cost of actually producing it... and i would say if you went to a specialist shop you would be lucky to walk out with a bottle of true..first cold pressed oil for under 30 dollars a lt

david and linda will most probably confirm from experience the amount of work they did to pick and collect their olives... the cost to mill them and the type of liquid it produced... and as an oil for myself producer here i can tell you it costs me more than that to arrive at my 30 or so lts per year.....and i would not part from it for less than 50 dollars a liter...but only if you want to come and pick it up yourself... oh no i ve just advertised something for sale...dont think i'll get many takers though

[QUOTE=adriatica]for the equivalent of 3 dollars you could only buy the worst commercial olive oil here... the cost if you buy locally from a home producer is minimum e6 - e 10 per lt... this is olive oil that is first pressed and in general a cold press even though some now use more modern mills to have their oil produced....

what you are buying at 3 dollars is at least second pressed and factory produced....you cannot buy what is true first pressed virtually green in color and thick as syrup oil for less than the cost of actually producing it... and i would say if you went to a specialist shop you would be lucky to walk out with a bottle of true..first cold pressed oil for under 30 dollars a lt

david and linda will most probably confirm from experience the amount of work they did to pick and collect their olives... the cost to mill them and the type of liquid it produced... and as an oil for myself producer here i can tell you it costs me more than that to arrive at my 30 or so lts per year.....and i would not part from it for less than 50 dollars a liter...but only if you want to come and pick it up yourself... oh no i ve just advertised something for sale...dont think i'll get many takers though[/QUOTE]

Hi John,

I think you misunderstood. I did not say that you can buy Virgin Olive Oil for 3.00 a liter. I'm not dumb. I have an olive plantation in Italy with approx 400 trees. I was just wandering what the co-ops were paying because my mom who looks after everything said they paid her the same as last year, when in fact most olive oil went up by apprx. 3.00 a liter here in North America.

Frank did not say the price was $3.00 in Canada, he said the price went up by $3.00; quite a difference is it not?

[quote=adriatica]... and i would not part from it for less than 50 dollars a liter...but only if you want to come and pick it up yourself... oh no i ve just advertised something for sale...dont think i'll get many takers though[/quote]

$50.00 a liter! What are you thinking? I buy first class Cold extraction Italian or Greek Kalamata "Extra Virgin Oil" in Vegas for about $9.00 a liter, at Trader Joe. You are perfectly right you will not get any takers, I say.

apologies to frank...re reading realise i jumped down your throat a bit and should have spent more time reading... sorry...

francis would i be right in thinking that equates to about euro 5 or 6... in that case i think what you are buying in the italian case anyway would not be regarded as first class....

i think i have explained what my neighbours charge.... and this is for the best olive oil you can buy... not only here in abruzzo but anywhere where they grow olives in a non factory commercial sense the price will always be from e6- 10.... in italy anyway...greek oil i know nothing about...

i can tell you though that to pick enough olives off a grove to make 60 lts of oil took four of us two and a half days...the mill charged so much per kilo ...the trees needed pruning and taking care of...eg cutting the grass beneath them ... and a bit of fertiliser...

the price you are paying for your oil would hardly pay someone to pick them ie 50 euro a day according to your price...it would then also not take into account all the processing and care... it is maybe why the production of oil in small to semi commercial entreprises here in italy is dying out...if people receive less than a living wage to produce a product which if costed on time and effort would or should be producing a return more like my absurd 50 than your equally absurd 9 dollars...

as regards what the cooperatives are paying it will most probably not be in line with the rise in consumer costs....commercial producers rely on eu grants for producing crops at a loss and the producer returns and what the co operatives pay will be tuned into those grants.... i can tell you that waste from the mills here goes to bigger factories on the coast where it is compressed again and that oil is also sold as extra virgin... and i believe this is a common practice...

frank you obviously know a bit about the stuff and am sure that when you arrive home and taste the oil from your own place or those of neighbours there is no comparison to what you can buy bottled in any of the supemarkets...not only abroad but here in italy also....

John

In Abruzzo is it possible to buy a press for home use? We only have 6 trees at the most so its not going to be a bumper harvest but a small press may be ideal for perhapes 1 bottle??Perhaps some of the old guys around us would have old equipment to sell?

Becky

[QUOTE=adriatica]apologies to frank...re reading realise i jumped down your throat a bit and should have spent more time reading... sorry...

francis would i be right in thinking that equates to about euro 5 or 6... in that case i think what you are buying in the italian case anyway would not be regarded as first class....

i think i have explained what my neighbours charge.... and this is for the best olive oil you can buy... not only here in abruzzo but anywhere where they grow olives in a non factory commercial sense the price will always be from e6- 10.... in italy anyway...greek oil i know nothing about...

i can tell you though that to pick enough olives off a grove to make 60 lts of oil took four of us two and a half days...the mill charged so much per kilo ...the trees needed pruning and taking care of...eg cutting the grass beneath them ... and a bit of fertiliser...

the price you are paying for your oil would hardly pay someone to pick them ie 50 euro a day according to your price...it would then also not take into account all the processing and care... it is maybe why the production of oil in small to semi commercial entreprises here in italy is dying out...if people receive less than a living wage to produce a product which if costed on time and effort would or should be producing a return more like my absurd 50 than your equally absurd 9 dollars...

as regards what the cooperatives are paying it will most probably not be in line with the rise in consumer costs....commercial producers rely on eu grants for producing crops at a loss and the producer returns and what the co operatives pay will be tuned into those grants.... i can tell you that waste from the mills here goes to bigger factories on the coast where it is compressed again and that oil is also sold as extra virgin... and i believe this is a common practice...

frank you obviously know a bit about the stuff and am sure that when you arrive home and taste the oil from your own place or those of neighbours there is no comparison to what you can buy bottled in any of the supemarkets...not only abroad but here in italy also....[/QUOTE]

John,

You are correct in saying that "there is no comparison to what you can buy bottled in any of the supemarkets".. I know that olive oil from Greece and Spain is usualy sold at a lower cost than Italian olive oil. The other thing that is not commonly known is that olive oil bottled in Italy does not necessarily mean that the olive oil is from Italy. Olive oil labled as "Product of Italy" usually retails between 20.00 to 40.00 a litre depending on the quality and region it is from. Biological olive oil is even more expensive. And once again it is not the same stuff as what you can get locally (dark green and unfiltered). Biological olive oil is even more expensive.

There is nothing better than a slice of bread covered in olive oil, oregano and fresh tomato and some fresh mozzarella di buffalo.

[QUOTE=manopello]
In Abruzzo is it possible to buy a press for home use?
[/QUOTE]

As far as I know, its not possible to press your own olives. As well as extracting the oil (which involves crushing the stone, as well as the flesh of the olive) it is necessary to separate the bitter juices from the oil - at the olive mill, this is done in a centrifuge.

If you only have a small quantity of olives, all is not lost though. Simply take them to your local Frantaio and the miller will give you oil in return. You can usually expect to get about 10% of the weight of olives back in oil. There is nothing quite like the stuff that comes straight out of the mill, so however little you have, you should try it!

i think that the ris in costs will be partly due to exporting cost going up i.e the price of petroleum etc, for our olives we have been told that we can expect to get 40 litres of oil from 250 kg of olives this will cost us roughly 30€ to get pressed.th e picking pruning costs are approx 65 - 100 € a day.

I was told that the cost of olive oil varies from region to region within Italy.
Olive Oil from Clabria is less expensive that olive oil from Puglia. I was even told that even within a region there are price differences. In the Puglia olive oil from the Gargano region is more expensive due to it's flavor.

agree with mark.... we have an olive mill.... sadly not working but it involves a huge crushing area... a press that weighs several tons and a seperation unit.... but there is always a local mill nearby....just make sure you use one of the old fashioned ones and not the continuous sytems where they use heat ....

Some mills don t accept anything less than a certain quantity is not cost effective for then to process let s say 100kg of olives so you might want to find out first, you can always ask you next door neighbours to add your olives to his-her, that means that you will never know what the resa (percentage of oil to olive) are. However for anyone that has a chance is a grate experience to go and visit a local frantoio and see the process of making oil is, it doesn’t look like anything like the oil you see in the supermarket that is been filtered many times, and also the bitter smell in the frantoio and the different stages are still amazing me after all this years.

Make sure that you go and see a stone mill and not the new continue one, I could debate between the quality of the final product between the two there are some local farmers debates about that !! :confused: :confused:

ps you cold buy your own press and a make oil.. but you might want to onsider that as an ivestment and make a bussines out of it :D

[quote=adriatica]
francis would i be right in thinking that equates to about euro 5 or 6... in that case i think what you are buying in the italian case anyway would not be regarded as first class.... [/quote]

John,
I am sure I also would prefer your oil in my salad, if I had the choice; but, I do not. In any event, the oil I am buying, not being an expert, looks very dark green and has a lovely scent, and more importantly tastes great. I would rate this as first class from a consumer point of view. Now I understand that similar to a certain princess, who could feel a pea through seven or more mattresses, there are people who can differentiate between olive oils, and these types possibly see fit to spend $50.00 per liter for that stuff. Myself, I am happy with the $9.00 imported oil from Trader Joe, who brings many of Europe's best goods for guys like me.

Sorry about the typo in the header; should be "Princess", but you all knew that.