Commitment to Quality

All to deliver the natural flavors.

Through careful handwork and the introduction of overseas technology, we are constantly in pursuit of what we call the “Genuine” in quality.

Three promises to deliver natural flavors.

1. 

   Prevent oxidation.

   Olives are very delicate and can deteriorate from even the slightest damage. Therefore, we harvest all olives by hand while wearing gloves to prevent any bruising. To avoid oxidation, we press the olives the same day they are harvested and fill them with nitrogen during pressing and bottling to keep them from exposure to air. This meticulous attention to preventing oxidation ensures a fresh flavor.

2. 

   Olives in great condition.

   The first requirement for a good olive harvest is for the olive trees themselves to grow vigorously.
   In order to achieve the best growing environment, we cultivate our olive trees with organic compost, carefully cut the grass to reduce damage from pests, and prune the trees according to variety.

3. 

   Eliminate
   impurities.

   The great value of our olives lies in their pure, natural flavor. To enhance purity, we remove any damaged or pest-infested olives, leaves, and stems, using only the finest olives. Each time we press the olives, we disassemble the machinery and thoroughly clean it to ensure no residue remains. Every step, from sorting to cleaning, contributes to the high quality of our olives.

Further Quality Improvement

Authentic Italian knowledge and
Cutting-edge technology.

We invite experts from Italy several times a year to learn about traditional farming methods, cultivation knowledge, and Cutting-edge technology. Our pressed oil is recognized by experts as being of the highest quality.

The Challenge of Producing
Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Based on the idea of environmental preservation to protect villages, forests, and oceans, we also cultivate without using any agricultural chemicals during the growing season. We use no pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers, and for fertilization and pest control, we use only carefully selected, naturally derived products. It is a time-consuming and labor-intensive method, but we believe it is our way of caring for the environment and a great added value.

Sanitation management systems that
guarantee a safe olive oil experience

The Etajima Olive Factory strives to prevent foreign material contamination by wearing sanitary clothing such as hats, masks, gloves, and lab coats, and entering the processing room through an air curtain, and by using shutters and doors to separate the fruit sorting room, receiving room, packing room, warehouse, tank room, and other rooms. The processing room, tank room, and product warehouse are kept under constant room temperature control 365 days a year, and each operation is thoroughly managed in accordance with HACCP standards for hygiene control.
We also set a safe and secure expiration date for our olive oil based on the results of bacteria tests conducted by the Hiroshima Prefecture Environmental Health Association.

We put our heart and soul into everything from growing saplings to harvesting

Olives begin to bear fruit in about four years and to become mature trees in eight to ten years. The flowers bloom around the end of May each year, and the green fruit, used for oil and fresh pickling, is harvested from late September to early November.

1. 

   Soil improvement

   Tilled every year with organic compost. Drainage measures are taken before planting to make the soil suitable for olive cultivation. When weeding, weeds are plowed in as green manure to improve the soil over the years.

2. 

   Weeding

   By weeding around the trees, we control damage caused by the olive Pimelocerus（Dyscerus）perforatus Roelofs, a pest that lays eggs on the bark and the hatching larvae eat under the bark and kill the trees. When excess grass is cut, nutrients from the soil are more efficiently distributed to the olives.

3. 

   Pruning

   Cutting branches allows light and wind to enter the tree, preventing nutrients from reaching unnecessary branches and improving fruit production. Because the characteristics of olives vary greatly from variety to variety, we use different pruning methods for each variety. We teach this cultivation and pruning methods to local farmers to ensure consistent quality.

4. 

   Hand picking

   Olives carefully nurtured for a year are harvested. In other countries, olives are generally harvested in large quantities by machine, but there is a risk of damaging the fruit and pressing the oil with deteriorated fruit. We harvest all olives by hand, wearing gloves to prevent damage to the olives.

5. 

   Sort olive fruit

   The oil in olives is oxidized immediately after harvesting, so olives are processed the same day they are harvested. Olives are collected and sorted at the Etajima Olive Factory. To ensure that the taste and aroma are not affected, defective fruit (anthrax, severely damaged by insects), leaves, shafts, etc. are removed visually and manually, and only the best olives are used.

6. 

   Oil expression

   It is said that 40% of oil quality is determined by production and 60% by pressing. For the pressing, we use the latest separate type of oil press introduced from Italy, instead of the unit type commonly used in Japan. This has the advantage of preventing heat buildup and allowing fine adjustment of temperature and speed at each stage of the process.
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7. 

   Cleaning

   Immediately after the end of oil milling, the oil press is disassembled, and parts are cleaned. If even a small amount of dregs remain in the press, the flavor of the olive oil will be lost due to the mixture of oxidized dregs, so we clean every part of the machine to ensure that the quality of the next pressing is not affected. The machine is cleaned regularly even when it is not in use.

8. 

   Oil management

   It is kept in a tank room where temperature and humidity are controlled at a constant level until the aroma and flavor have settled. To prevent oxidation, the containers are filled with nitrogen before bottling, and the wine is kept in a light-shielded environment.