It's been a while since I last wrote a blog so thought I would try and highlight the years events for Juno Olives all in one go!
To those of you who have visited the grove, you will have seen the house has now gone from the enterance. It has gone into the grove for us to take maximum pleasure from sitting on the deck with the stunning view of the grove and the tararua hills behind. Although this was also stressful watching the flocks of birds coming into the grove around harvest time.
It has been a trying year for all olive oil producers in NZ this year. Whilst the quantity of olives will be significantly down, limiting the availability of NZ produced oilve oils, the intensity is back to what we would all expect of our locally produced olive oils.
All of our Extra Virgin olive oils have now been certified and will be going on sale in the near future. One of the constituents of extra virgin olive oil that gives the health benefits, is the polyphenol counts. These are also an indication of how intense an olive oil is; mild <150, medium 150-300, intense >300. Our Picual, Leccino and Koroneiki are all medium, and our Frantoio and Picholine are intense, with our Picholine having one of the highest polyphenol counts in NZ this year at >900! Maybe I should think about going into medicinal products.
From our flavoured range we are waiting for our ever popular blood orange flavoured oil to settle prior to bottling, and the basil flavoured oil is alomost ready to be bottled; and we have enough to see us beyond November this year (unless demand is even higher than the last 2 years).
New for this year, we are trailing 1 and 2 Litre bag in box for our Extra Virgin Oils. This will help keep the oils in better condition; as the bags empty and collapse, air doesn't get to the oil reducing oxygenation which ultimately will result in rancidity. It is also certainly more cost effective in terms of $/L and has a lower environmental cost with local sourcing and recyclability. The bags are not currently recyclable but we are looking into that option for the future, if the format works for consumers.
I think that will do for now and I will try and be more diligent for you all this year with more frequent posts.
Andy and Helen Liley