Olive Oil Processing

Our Olives are picked at just the right time for flavour and colour and then processed entirely on the Estate using top-of-the range Italian-made processing equipment unique to Australasia.

The benefits of our onsite processing facility are many:

• our equipment is closed, so pulp and oils are not exposed to air and therefore do not begin to oxidise before packaging;
• the process is continuous, so crushed olives are not left sitting around the factory waiting for emulsifying;
• no heat is involved. All Simunovich Olive Estate oils are cold pressed to maintain all their original flavours and nutritional benefits.
• being processed entirely on the Estate means we have complete quality control from picking to packaging.

After separation, the oil is immediately polished to take out any impurities including small droplets of vegetable water or fine sediment; but that is not the end, we filter it too. This is why Simunovich Olive Estate oil tastes so great and we can confidently say that no one else in New Zealand makes it this way.

The proof has been in the acclaim Simunovich Olive Estate oils have achieved at the New Zealand Olive Association Awards winning awards every year since we started processing; in 2004 silver, in 2005 silver & gold, 2006 bronze, 2007 gold & bronze. Our Simunovich Olive Estate First Press extra virgin olive oil achieved us a place as one of the Southern Hemisphere’s ten leading olive oil producers.