Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Jan 25, 2016 (IV)

choi

(7) Peter Robison and Vernon Silver, Is American Olive Oil About to Have Its Moment?  In 1976 the wine industry was changed forever when a vintage from California was judged superior to its European counterparts. Is the same thing about to happen to olive oil?
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-california-olive-oil/

Quote:

"an 18-year-old company called California Olive Ranch is upsetting tradition and muscling into the ancient industry by fixing the tree itself.  The company’s 2,200-acre orchard, an hour north of Sacramento, is an industrial marvel. The 1.3 million trees there are more like bushes, 6 to 10 feet tall and planted in neat, tight rows. The density lets a two-story mechanical harvester straddle the trees and strip away the olives to a conveyor that drops them into a truck, which delivers them to an on-site mill that can press 3,200 gallons of oil an hour. No olive is touched by hand. California Olive Ranch, a privately held company, estimates it accounted for 65 percent of the olive oil produced in the U.S. in 2015.  Traditionalists [read: 'Mediterranean producers accounting for 98 percent of world output'] sneer at the idea of factory farming in the world of olives.

"US, the world’s third-largest olive oil market, with $2 billion in sales. Brands that trade on an Italian identity dominate [in US]. Many of the best-selling oils, legally labeled 'imported from Italy' or 'packed in Italy,' with images of the country’s flag or hearty peasants, are made from olives grown in Greece, Spain, or Tunisia and then shipped to Italy for processing. * * * yet 6 in 10 Americans never buy olive oil. Consumption in the US has tripled since 1990, compared with a doubling worldwide, and is still only 0.8 liters per capita—one-tenth of what a typical Italian uses in a year.

"California Olive Ranch is trying to do with olives what California did with wine. It’s marrying a fastidious, technology-driven approach—[Gregory] Kelley[, chief executive officer of California Olive Ranch.] worked at several Silicon Valley tech startups—with California’s self-appointed role as the world’s regulator.

"The question of quality is being answered in a way that echoes the moment in 1976 when a chardonnay from Chateau Montelena in Napa outscored its French rivals in a blind tasting that came to be known as the Judgment of Paris. In November, Cook’s Illustrated magazine released its closely followed recommendations for supermarket olive oils. Tasters in blind tests sampled the oils plain, with bread, over mozzarella and tomatoes, and in a vinaigrette drizzled on salad greens. They gave their top ranking to California Olive Ranch’s Everyday Extra Virgin, which they said was 'fragrant' and 'fruity,' with a 'complex finish.'

"Improper storage is a bigger problem. Exposing oil to heat or light makes it bland and also destroys the cancer-fighting polyphenols that are the basis of its reputation as a promoter of good health.

"California Olive Ranch positions itself as the New World answer to these problems. But its own roots are in the Old World. The company is owned mostly by Spaniards * * * the [olive] trees can live for 1,000 years, so they don’t need to be replaced often. Then one day, as lore has it, Sumarroca looked out over his vineyards and noticed a mechanical grape harvester systematically stripping the fruit. Nearby, at a neighbor’s olive orchard, he saw men picking by hand. Sumarroca wondered if a grape harvester could do the same work for olives. His managers told him about a variety called arbequina, which grew like a bush.  Their experiments led to a production method now known as super-high- density, with as many as 900 trees planted per acre, eight times what’s typical.

"Even the old guard concedes that super-high-density harvesting, in use for just 5 percent of Europe's volume, may eventually catch on. Mechanical harvesting costs about one-seventh as much as picking by hand. * * * Soon after an Oxbo harvester has taken a half-hour to swallow 7 tons of fruit from an acre of trees—work that would have taken 15 people a day by hand

My comment:
(a) There is no need need to read the rest. But do view graphics.
(b) Arbequina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbequina
(section 1 Etymology: village of Arbeca in Catalonia, Spain; The fruit does not ripen simultaneously)

(c) The partners of California Olive Ranch "bought 733 acres near Oroville, Calif, where, in the 1700s, Franciscan missionaries from Spain had planted some of the first olive trees in North America."
(i) County seat of Butte County, Oroville got its name from gold "found at Bidwell Bar [part of Oroville], one of the first gold mining sites in California."  Oroville is not associated with olive trees.  Franciscans did not establish a mission in or around here.
(ii) Spanish missions in California
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_missions_in_California
(Olives (first cultivated at Mission San Diego de Alcalá) were grown, cured, and pressed under large stone wheels to extract their oil, both for use at the mission and to trade for other goods)