The Warrnambool harvest challenge turning local’s backyard olives into liquid gold

More than 900 kilograms of overlooked backyard olives were rescued across Warrnambool last year and turned into more than 140 litres of oil, given back to locals who helped gather them.

This year, volunteers behind the effort are hoping to crack the tonne.

What’s going on: Food security organisation Fruit Rescue is bringing back its community olive harvest for a second year, encouraging residents to host picking parties and turn unwanted fruit into locally pressed olive oil.

• “We've seen it happening in other areas before, and lots of people have said, ‘oh, I've got olives, what can you do with them?’” Director Courtney Mathew told the Brolga.

• “So last year we decided to give it a crack and ended up with 913 kilos, which blew us away.”

A big three days: The harvest, taking place this weekend, will see residents pick olives on Friday and Saturday from trees in Warrnambool, Koroit and Port Fairy before dropping them off on Sunday at community collection points in each town.

• Mathew said this year’s event would be more community-led, with neighbours and friends encouraged to organise their own harvesting groups.

• “This is the second time that we're doing the olive harvest, and this year we're flipping the script a little bit and encouraging people to have their own picking parties and collect their olives and drop them to us,” she said.

A bountiful harvest: Last year’s haul produced about 140 litres of olive oil after being processed by Grampians Olive Co, but Mathew said many people underestimated just how much fruit was needed.

• “I think the most surprising thing is just the ratio of how many olives you have to collect to even get one litre,” she said. “It's between seven to 10 kilograms of olives to make one litre.”

Good times: The process itself has become part of the fun, with volunteers turning the effort into a social occasion. Once the oil is ready, each volunteer receives a bottle.

• “We've tried all sorts of different techniques, from whacking the tree with a stick to try and dislodge them, raking them, doing all sorts of things,” Mathew said.

• “People had their playlists on and were sort of singing different songs and doing things together, and then you get to enjoy the bounty of it.”

Join in: About 20 collection sites and 30 volunteer pickers have already registered for this year’s harvest.

Groups can register on the Fruit Rescue website.