The Hunter Valley

The cultivation of olive trees in The Hunter Valley stretches from Gloucester and the Barrington Tops, down to Anna Bay on the coast at Port Stephens, south down to the Central Coast and as far west as Merriwa and Gundy. 

The largest concentration of groves is around the Pokolbin / Lovedale / Rothbury areas already well known for their vineyards, and around the Broke / Fordwich / Singleton areas, again well known for wine and agriculture in general.

The biggest groves are located in the Upper Hunter at Merriwa & Denman and are substantial commercial operations with their own brands and processing plants on site. The Lower Hunter tends to be dominated by much small boutique scale groves, many of whom contribute to Hunter Olives.

While there have been olive trees in the Hunter for decades, most plantings commenced in the early to mid nineties. There are now about 150 olive groves in the Hunter typically with 500 to 3000 trees. There are a larger groves with up to 30,000 trees but nothing to match the vast plantings that have occurred in western Victoria where just one grove has more than million trees! The smaller scale of the Hunter olive industry is similar to the wine industry and has the benefit of a high level of personal involvement of the producers.

At best estimate there are probably around 250,000 olive trees in the Hunter of which about 65% would primarily be for oil production with the balance used for table fruit. Most trees are only just starting to produce in any quantity so the amount of local olive products currently available is still relatively small but can be expected to increase significantly over the 3- 4 years. Even at full production the Hunter will only produce a relatively small proportion of olive products consumed in Australia.  What we lack in scale we make up for in quality!