Bozzano Olive Ranch - Stockton Record: "Olive oil industry, production getting bigger by the moment"

By Reed Fujii
Record Staff Writer

LODI - Olive oil production in California is a hot ticket.

About 130 people joined in a two-day class offered Friday and Saturday in Lodi by the University of California, and others had to be turned away, said Dan Flynn, executive director of the UC Davis Olive Center. California olive oil production still is small but growing rapidly.

"Right now, we do about 500,000 gallons a year, and in four years it's probably going to be 2 million gallons," Flynn said Friday at Corto Olive. The plant between Stockton and Lodi is one of the largest and newest oil-processing plants in California.

What's driving the boom is a new low-cost production approach: planting dwarf olive varieties in dense hedgerows, allowing them to be gathered by mechanical grape harvesters instead of labor-intensive traditional methods.

Corto and a sister company, Lodi Farming, provide a model for this approach, called super-high-density planting, and served as an outdoor classroom for the UC short course.

Organizers said the event drew farmers interested in both large- and small-scale olive production, as well those who might serve the new industry, such as nursery growers and agricultural lenders.

Paul Lynch, who grows cherries and walnuts southeast of Stockton, said the potential to diversify his operation and "an awful lot of upside potential" had drawn him to the event.

Olive oil consumption is rising rapidly in the United States, but nearly all is supplied by foreign imports, he noted.

That gives California producers a large and growing target market, as well as the advantage of the current weak dollar making imported oil more costly.

"I think there's an opportunity as well to expand this whole farm tourism idea," Lynch said.

He suggested a boutique olive producer could thrive on direct-to-consumer sales, similar to the small wineries that have sprung up all throughout the Lodi area in recent years.

Brad Alderson, an Acampo wine consultant and former general manger of the Woodbridge Winery, on Friday also drew parallels between olives and winegrapes.

"This thing is at the same place grapes were 30 years ago," he said while participating in the olive class.

Jack Bozzano, who has grown and packed cherries and operated a repacking operation in Stockton since 1989, launched a small-scale olive mill and boutique line of oils with his son, Joe Bozzano, last year.

His is a slightly different take on the business: He's marketing his own brand of oils to grocery stores and gourmet shops. He also has planted a high-density orchard, as opposed to super-high density, whose larger trees will not allow the use of over-the-row grape harvesters.

Still, the UC class provided a new insight - a prune harvester might prove an effective replacement for hand labor in his orchards.

"That's kind of exciting news," Bozzano said.

Corto Olive, which completed its second harvest season last year, already is looking to expand.

The San Joaquin County Planning Commission on Thursday approved a 10-year plan to expand Corto Olive's production capacity to 600,000 gallons a year. It reportedly pressed 40,000 gallons last fall.

Brady Whitlow, president of Corto Olive, said the most immediate step would be building additional oil storage tanks. Currently, the facility can store as much as 150,000 gallons, not enough to hold what the existing mill is capable of producing.

Corto also plans on installing a bottling line but would produce only private-label oils for independent marketers or large retailers.

"I'm not intending to create a brand," he said.

Contact reporter Reed Fujii at (209) 546-8253 or rfujii@recordnet.com