Gallery : Harvest 2020

The olive harvest season in South Africa runs from March to May, and while most of the country is currently in Covid lockdown, farmers are permitted to carry on during this most crucial time of the year.

Local legislation, in addition to the highest international food safety standards (FSSC22000) we adhere to, has lead us to introduce new hygiene measures: face masks, hand disinfectants and distance between the pickers. Fortunately, social distancing is hardly a challenge on a 1,000 hectare farm, of which 50 hectares with 50,000 trees!

Our olives are hand-picked by an average of 100 contract workers that are bussed in from neighbouring farms. We pick up to 20 large crates of olives per day – that is up to 10,000 kg of olives per day. Once picked, olives are transported to the pressing plant on Mardouw, where they are sorted, cleaned, crushed and stored in large steel tanks or in containers with brine. Cortina olives are kept separate for our flagship XXV.

Initial tastings promise powerful, spicy flavours for our 2020 extra virgin olive oils. By 31 March, we had already picked 51,130kg of olives, and pressed 10,400 litres of oil. We hope to harvest up to 250,000kg of olives by the end of May.

Read more about how we make olive oil here