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<pre>Hi Paul

Good to hear from you. Olives Australia, purveyors of good quality
Manzanillo trees and other varieties, also have de-pitters. It's the
"Sadrym" automated pitting machine capable of doing 2500 olives per minute.
Their serial number is AKO2A and the price is $APOA.

That's a lot of olives Paul. Do you think that Oz can rival Spain, Italy,
Greece et al in the pitted olive department. Goodness me, we shall have
enough trouble with oil!

They also have the "Sadrym" olive slicing machine capable of doing
1000-2000kgs/hour. Paul, that's a heap of sliced olives even if you only
run it for an hour. Do you really think Oz can match Spain etc in this
field?

It is my opinion that the machines Olive Australia have selected are well
named as I feel Oz will always be on the sad rim of failure with respect to
cured and sliced olives. Maybe we will occupy a niche but it is with oil
that we will gain credence.

But only if we lower the temperatures (amongst other things) of our mills.
My centrifuge operates at 18-20 degreesC, if it gets higher I worry. My
middle season (getting close to the end) crushings are yielding 18-20% wxw
at this temperature - who can claim better from Mission and Verdale? The
bigger ones work at 37C and they may very well match the extraction figures
(although I doubt it) but the quality suffers as we well know.

Am having a blind tasting later this week of various oils. The group will
have one "expert", about twelve other "novice" tasters and will be sampling
this years oil from 3 distinct areas. Simon Johnson is not involved and I
would expect some interesting conclusions. I have a particular penchant for
lower temperature extractions and this will be a feature of same. Shall
keep you posted.

In closing may I pay particular thanks/homage to
Guido/Steve/Constantine/Butch and all the others for a most informative
week. I think it may have been Mahomed, last month, that regretted that
some topics are passed over in the rush of things. In my case I can assure
him that the ripple effect is live and well. Issues are raised and not
always dealt with on this forum. The issues remain however and they are
dealt with.

Regards
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