The approach taken was therefore to collaborate with many of our colleagues in our region who were all in effect dealing with the same situation. The net result was that we became the lead entity and took on the responsibility of fully maintaining the groves of those who wanted to become our associate partners. Our payment was the fruit and our costs were the whole process including sales and marketing. Our partners returns were either money, oil, finished product or a combination thereof. Their benefit was a maintained and productive grove that has market value and does not require any of their effort to maintain.
We own the oil, sell and the market the products by focussing on provenance and terroir of the oils. We have a large range of boutique oils that are under one roof which is appealing to trade, food service and consumers alike.
Our goal is for the region to be seen by everyone as the boutique oil producing region of our state and country. For this to be achievable there must be a viable boutique oil business model and not simply one brand and a limited range. We see the region evolving to have a range of ultra-premium brands, a range of contract growers and a few bigger producers of quality value products all hopefully with GRO as their supporting partner.
We think our approach is different for this industry – although not unique in agriculture. We try to make it a win-win relationship and keep our associates informed with what is happening. We are confident that our associates appreciate our approach and what we are doing.
Four Seasons Later
After four seasons we now have about 20,000 trees with about 13,000 of those productive. We are targeting 60,000 trees and recently harvested 250t of quality fruit that led to a multitude of awards.
Due to the distributed nature of our groves we are endeavouring to incorporate smart farming practices and Agtech solutions to further improve quality and productivity.