Press » Olives a Pressing Concern for Family
Perhaps only a veteran oil man like Ron Asquith could have seen the potential in the aging Ojai Valley olive orchard, where century-old trees stood like weary soldiers posted across the rugged hillsides.
Close to retirement after nearly 20 years with Occidental Petroleum, Asquith decided five years ago to hunt for oil of a different kind. He revived what had once been a productive orchard near the birthplace of the nation’s commercial olive oil industry.
Now in its second year of production, the Ojai Olive Oil Co. expects to press two tons of the marble-sized fruit this year, filling nearly 1,000 bottles and tapping traditions that run deep in Ventura County.
“It’s nice to know that we are doing something that maintains those traditions,” said Asquith, who runs the family operation with his ex-wife, Alice, and their adult children, Philip and Nicole. “By growing olives and making oil, you are doing something that dates back thousands of years, something you read about in the Bible.”
It’s also a tradition that has experienced a revival in California agriculture, where a growing number of producers are pumping out greater quantities of olive oil each year. California growers produce 99% of the oil made in the United States, although that is only a fraction of the worldwide supply.
About 100 commercial processors in California made half a million gallons of extra virgin olive oil last year, a 20% increase over the previous year, according to the California Olive Oil Council.
A similar jump in production is expected this year, due in part to the entrance of growers such as Asquith.
“There’s tremendous interest in the industry,” said Patty Darragh, executive director of the 400-member council based in Berkeley.
“I think olive oil has always had an aura about it,” she added. “It went on the crusades and was there during the Holy Wars. It has been used to anoint the sick and the dying. It has this wonderful history that I think gives people a connection with the past.”
In California, that past stretches back to the late 1700s, when Spanish missionaries first planted olive trees at California missions and began making oil for cooking and other domestic purposes.
The nation’s first commercial olive oil production is said to have come a century later, at the same Fillmore-area rancho that inspired Helen Hunt Jackson’s groundbreaking romance novel, “Ramona.”
Judith Taylor’s book, “The Olive In California, History of an Immigrant Tree,” recounts how the Del Valle family, pioneers in the state and Ventura County, sold the first oil from its press at historic Rancho Camulos in 1871.
Over the hill in the Ojai Valley, the olive oil business was also taking off.
The first olive orchard was planted in the east end in the mid-1800s, according to Cherie Brant, a docent at the Ventura County Museum of History and Art, who researched the subject for the county farm bureau’s magazine.
Among the earliest of the county’s crops, olives thrived in the area’s rugged soil and dry climate, Brant said.
By the turn of the century, a group of ranchers had launched the Ojai Olive Assn., running a communal mill that closed two years later because of competition from less-expensive Italian products, Brant said.
Only scattered remnants remain today of those once-thriving orchards, including the grove Asquith bought years ago that contained 130 trees planted in the late 1800s.
The Asquith family has planted 1,000 more since then, seeking to increase production at the 36-acre ranch, where rutted dirt pathways and steeply sloped hillsides conjure up images of the Tuscan countryside.
“His original vision was just to have it as a hobby with a hand-operated press,” said Asquith’s son, Philip, president of the family company. “Last year was really our test run, and when that went so well we decided to expand.”
With the harvest in full swing, the Asquiths intend to double the production of last year, when they made 500 bottles and sold them at the Ojai farmers market for $15 a bottle. The Asquiths say they are not trying to compete with less-expensive olive oil that can be found on supermarket shelves.
This year’s bottling also will be sold at the open-air market and on a Web site being developed by Philip Asquith, who also runs a small venture capital business based in Los Angeles.
Aside from that step into the modern marketing world, much of the operation is performed just as it was a century ago. Shouldering nylon sacks, a small crew of workers scampers up ladders leaning into the trees. Their hands become a blur, moving quickly from branch to branch, picking only what is ripe and ready for the press.
In a spare green building in the middle of the orchard, the olives are loaded into a press imported from Italy.
They are washed, churned into paste and then funneled into a centrifuge, which draws out the oil. The end product flows thick and golden out of a tube at the bottom of the machine and is stored in stainless steel tanks until bottling.
The Asquiths have put $15,000 to $20,000 into their equipment and hope to produce 15,000 to 20,000 bottles a year as the newer trees mature.
“It becomes a passion; it really does,” said Alice Asquith, on hand for the first day of pressing. “It’s about making something real, something that’s good for you.”
For Ron Asquith, who has grown oranges in the Ojai Valley for two decades, it’s also about taking part in an industry uncommon in California while keeping alive a piece of the state’s rich agricultural past.
“Having grown oranges here for 20 years, I can tell you, nobody calls you up to talk about growing oranges or to find out how your oranges are doing,” he said. “But people call frequently to talk about olives. There’s just something about them that people find fascinating.”
Close to retirement after nearly 20 years with Occidental Petroleum, Asquith decided five years ago to hunt for oil of a different kind. He revived what had once been a productive orchard near the birthplace of the nation’s commercial olive oil industry.
Now in its second year of production, the Ojai Olive Oil Co. expects to press two tons of the marble-sized fruit this year, filling nearly 1,000 bottles and tapping traditions that run deep in Ventura County.
“It’s nice to know that we are doing something that maintains those traditions,” said Asquith, who runs the family operation with his ex-wife, Alice, and their adult children, Philip and Nicole. “By growing olives and making oil, you are doing something that dates back thousands of years, something you read about in the Bible.”
It’s also a tradition that has experienced a revival in California agriculture, where a growing number of producers are pumping out greater quantities of olive oil each year. California growers produce 99% of the oil made in the United States, although that is only a fraction of the worldwide supply.
About 100 commercial processors in California made half a million gallons of extra virgin olive oil last year, a 20% increase over the previous year, according to the California Olive Oil Council.
A similar jump in production is expected this year, due in part to the entrance of growers such as Asquith.
“There’s tremendous interest in the industry,” said Patty Darragh, executive director of the 400-member council based in Berkeley.
“I think olive oil has always had an aura about it,” she added. “It went on the crusades and was there during the Holy Wars. It has been used to anoint the sick and the dying. It has this wonderful history that I think gives people a connection with the past.”
In California, that past stretches back to the late 1700s, when Spanish missionaries first planted olive trees at California missions and began making oil for cooking and other domestic purposes.
The nation’s first commercial olive oil production is said to have come a century later, at the same Fillmore-area rancho that inspired Helen Hunt Jackson’s groundbreaking romance novel, “Ramona.”
Judith Taylor’s book, “The Olive In California, History of an Immigrant Tree,” recounts how the Del Valle family, pioneers in the state and Ventura County, sold the first oil from its press at historic Rancho Camulos in 1871.
Over the hill in the Ojai Valley, the olive oil business was also taking off.
The first olive orchard was planted in the east end in the mid-1800s, according to Cherie Brant, a docent at the Ventura County Museum of History and Art, who researched the subject for the county farm bureau’s magazine.
Among the earliest of the county’s crops, olives thrived in the area’s rugged soil and dry climate, Brant said.
By the turn of the century, a group of ranchers had launched the Ojai Olive Assn., running a communal mill that closed two years later because of competition from less-expensive Italian products, Brant said.
Only scattered remnants remain today of those once-thriving orchards, including the grove Asquith bought years ago that contained 130 trees planted in the late 1800s.
The Asquith family has planted 1,000 more since then, seeking to increase production at the 36-acre ranch, where rutted dirt pathways and steeply sloped hillsides conjure up images of the Tuscan countryside.
“His original vision was just to have it as a hobby with a hand-operated press,” said Asquith’s son, Philip, president of the family company. “Last year was really our test run, and when that went so well we decided to expand.”
With the harvest in full swing, the Asquiths intend to double the production of last year, when they made 500 bottles and sold them at the Ojai farmers market for $15 a bottle. The Asquiths say they are not trying to compete with less-expensive olive oil that can be found on supermarket shelves.
This year’s bottling also will be sold at the open-air market and on a Web site being developed by Philip Asquith, who also runs a small venture capital business based in Los Angeles.
Aside from that step into the modern marketing world, much of the operation is performed just as it was a century ago. Shouldering nylon sacks, a small crew of workers scampers up ladders leaning into the trees. Their hands become a blur, moving quickly from branch to branch, picking only what is ripe and ready for the press.
In a spare green building in the middle of the orchard, the olives are loaded into a press imported from Italy.
They are washed, churned into paste and then funneled into a centrifuge, which draws out the oil. The end product flows thick and golden out of a tube at the bottom of the machine and is stored in stainless steel tanks until bottling.
The Asquiths have put $15,000 to $20,000 into their equipment and hope to produce 15,000 to 20,000 bottles a year as the newer trees mature.
“It becomes a passion; it really does,” said Alice Asquith, on hand for the first day of pressing. “It’s about making something real, something that’s good for you.”
For Ron Asquith, who has grown oranges in the Ojai Valley for two decades, it’s also about taking part in an industry uncommon in California while keeping alive a piece of the state’s rich agricultural past.
“Having grown oranges here for 20 years, I can tell you, nobody calls you up to talk about growing oranges or to find out how your oranges are doing,” he said. “But people call frequently to talk about olives. There’s just something about them that people find fascinating.”
Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2002
