THE first units at Cobram Estate’s new olive oil processing plant at Boort have already doubled daily production.
Specialist equipment imported from Italy as part of the $25 million expansion is extracting oil from fruit grown at the company’s 3500-hectare grove and other Loddon groves.
“In a fairly short time, we have seen the first equipment installed and straight up and running. It’s been great,” said general manager horticulture Ruth Sutherland.
Investment will grow the processing mill to the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.
Harvest started early May and is scheduled to be finished at the end of June.
“We’re now processing close to double the volume a day than we were before,” Ruth said.
“This is an on-year for olives and is looking to be better than average.
“There is a really good quality and this adds to the excitement of using the new mill equipment for the first time.”
Ruth said new processing units in the expanded mill, four times the size of Cobram Estate’s previous building, were part of a significant investment by the company when also coupled with planting of additional groves at Boort.
This is Ruth’s sixth harvest. “There has been lots of changes with redevelopments, and now, the mill, that is very satisfying,” she said.
Ruth said additional staff had been employed for the 2023 harvest, joining returning backpackers and grey nomads who had previously worked in Boort during the picking season.
When completed, the mill expansion will lift full vertical integration production capacity at Boort to 80 tonnes of fruit an hour.