The parochial directive to ‘buy Australian’ is a constant reminder that we can do good for our country. By investing in local business and buying locally-grown produce, we help build the economy, generate jobs, and enjoy fresher products that haven’t travelled thousands of kilometers to get here.

Furthermore, choosing Australian-made and -grown extra-virgin olive oil means you’re more likely to be buying just that.

There is a lot of inferior olive oil in the Australian market, and some isn’t ‘extra-virgin’ at all. In recent years, CHOICE magazine discovered that out of the 28 they tested, half don’t meet the international standards to be called ‘extra-virgin’, and most of those were imported from Italy and Spain.

In 2009, accredited Modern Olives Laboratory Services (where we get our oil tested) found that over 80% of imported olive oils sold in Australia weren’t ‘extra-virgin’ like they were labelled, because they were of poor quality being too old, too refined, or a combination of both.

While Australia doesn’t have a mandatory standard to define what is ‘extra-virgin’, the International Olive Council’s trade standard is recognised as a benchmark around the world for oils to comply with, both chemically and how it is experienced by our senses such as taste, sight and smell (organoleptic). CHOICE and Modern Olives use this standard with their testing.

At Gavarnie, we grow our own olives to make our tested and qualified extra-virgin olive oil, sometimes supplemented with olives grown by local people we know and trust with us in Amphitheatre, the Victorian Pyrenees region north-west of Melbourne.

After picking, we press the olives locally too so it is fresher and of the highest quality, watching and being closely involved in every step of the process. Our oil isn’t highly-filtered, so it retains more of the artisan essence of a traditional hand-pressed product.

So by choosing Gavarnie extra-virgin olive oil, you are buying a high-quality, crafted Australian product that ticks the boxes. It is one you can rely on knowing you are actually getting what you’re paying for.