Olive grove produces quality produce

Salute Oliva at Boort specialises in olive oil and associated products, all grown using organic principles.

When Marlies and Peter Eicher decided it was time to for a change from the city, they didnt realise their sea change would become a tree change that would lead them to set up an olive grove at Boort.
 We were looking to move - we were both professional engineers stuck in the city who sort of stumbled across olives, Marlies said.
And then Saluté Oliva was born, a family owned and operated business that specialises in first class extra virgin olive oil and table olives for the connoisseur.
We planted our first lot of trees ten years ago and then our second lot nine years ago, previous to that we spent a couple of years learning the process.
The 2100 frantoio,manzanillo and kalamata olive trees thrive in the varied soil types and the hot summers and cold winters of the Boort area.
The clean environment and fertile soil convinced the family to grow their trees based on organic principles and the entire process from irrigation to harvesting, pressing the oil or pickling the olives is done by our family, here on the farm.
Processing the olives on farm ensures the time from harvest to pickling or harvest to pressing is reduced, enabling the highest quality product to be produced.
A tornado shaker is used to harvest the olives used for oil production which ensures no contamination occurs during the process and within hours the olives are transported to the processing shed for oil extraction.
Short processing times mean we produce a fruity, well flavoured extra virgin olive oil with all of the goodness nature can produce.
Our table olives are manually harvested and selected for size, ripeness, colour and they too within hours have started the pickling process.
Salute Oliva has also expanded on their concept of growing their products naturally by installing a new 3.5 KW solar PV system.
This system will help us reduce our greenhouse gases and contribute to our philosophy of producing a natural, clean green product.
And while the whole process has been a very big learning curve for the family and the business, they wouldnt have it any other way.