World-first olive processing method in South Australia transforms taste and water use

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Olives are a complex fruit requiring processing to remove their bitterness. In South Australia, a world-first method is transforming the taste while reducing water use and labour. Landline's Jessica Schremmer met a pioneering engineer who's working with farmers to bring out fresh new flavours.

Transcript

00:00These table olives, harvested at George Cartopolis family grove in South Australia's

00:09Riverland region, are destined to be debittered and prepared in a new style.

00:20The fresh fruit is being unloaded at a loxton processing facility about an hour from the

00:26farm gate, where John Filke, a professor of mechanical engineering, is applying his new

00:34patented processing method.

00:38This process is a world first, really, to actually put olives into a brine, keep that brine clear

00:45and then actually create a nice tasting table olive.

00:49Many people have been looking at different ways of making olives, but the industry really

00:53has its fixed perception of what an olive is.

01:01The distinctive characteristics of well-known Greek, Spanish and Californian-style table olives

01:07lie in the varieties and initial harvesting and processing methods.

01:13In large commercial quantities, they want the olives debittered very quickly.

01:17So they put it into a lye solution, which then breaks down those bitter compounds very quickly

01:23in 24 hours.

01:25But they may have to do 10 washes of the olives.

01:28So 10 times the volume of the olives they are putting through there.

01:34But John Filke is on a mission to revolutionize the industry by making the debittering process

01:42more efficient and sustainable.

01:49Unlike traditional methods, where the olives are picked and sent to processing facilities

01:55before going into brine, John takes the brine to the olive grove.

02:00Do they already come in the brine?

02:02Yes.

02:03So part of our process, we are sending the brine to the farm with the bins, and then the farmers

02:08are putting the olives in here, adding the brine, and then that is protecting and actually

02:13stopping the enzymic and the browning of the olives straight away.

02:18He then relies on chemistry and filtering systems to process the olives in tanks at the factory.

02:26We are keeping the same water right from the beginning through to the end.

02:29So that's a huge saving in water and the time to do that.

02:36The new processing method, coined olives the Australian way, is a lifeline for some local

02:42growers.

02:43For us, we've gone from basically wanting to step back out of the industry to expanding ourselves.

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