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<pre>Dear All

Firstly a cultural message. I recently held a workshop on Edible oils
for a national science teachers conference. Of course I talked about the
Mediterranean Diet ans olive oil.

An interesting aspect was that on a show of hands - butter and olive oil
were the two most popular edible oils!

Secondly - regarding Koroneiki (small olive high oil content) or even
Konservolia (large olive with a high oil content). These two cultivars
have been overlooked and are worthy of planting particularly if one
wishes to emulate the Greek Olive Oils. Greece loses a signifiant
quantity of its olive oil to Italy where it is used to blend with other
local and internationally sourced olive oils. This is lamented by the
Greeks and they see it as tragedy that Cretan Olive Oils (Koroneiki),
considered by the industry to be some of the best olive oils in the
Mediterranean, lost in a blended bottle of oil.

Thirdly - the current thinking in mechanical harvesting of vibrators and
overhead harvesters are not the only ways. Some rationality has come in
to play when growers realise that hand picked olives produce high
quality oils. The Greeks have successfully used the compressed air rake
system for harvesting successfully and if olives are crushed wothin a
few days of harvest, low acid oils are produced.

Fourthly as harvesting is a topic fo discussion. For table olives you
can throw out the veiws that olive trees need a one meter clear trunk
and that they cannot be machine harvested. A lot depends upon the
variety and the processing method. Table olive trees should be kept low
and wide, even with multiple trunks, so that harvesting can be
undertaken without ladders. If you wish to prepare the unblemished Green
Spanish Style olives or the Californian Black (artificial) then you have
to hand pick. For the Konservolea, also called Volos (sometimes
Wallace??) using pneumatic driven rakes is suitable and practical. Go
to your local continental store and try some of these olives.

Fifthly - The University of Western Australia and the Western Australian
Chemistry Centre have been funded (RIRDC) to develop the Australian
Table Olive Production Manual¿. This is a two year project which include
the establishment of standards based on HACCP to be used by the
industry, agencies and other stakeholders. Manal should be the premium
olive reference for Australia.

Year 1 July2000/2001- Draft Guidelines
Year 2 July 2001/2002 Finished Manual

Prof Stan Kailis
The University of Western australia

We wish to hear from those on this list who are growing table olives,
interested in growing table olives, processing table olives, marketing
table olives in Australia; and persons who are developing QA and HACCP
programs for olives in Australia or the rest of the world.

At this stage name, address, email, Fax, Telephone number is required so
that we can make contact.
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