Step 2: How to choose your press?
Laurence, francisco and Adeline greet you and answer to your questions
How to choose your press?
IN BEAUCAIRE:
Starting at 80 kg of olives, it is possible to make a personal press on the small chain of 200 kg per hour. Below 80 kg of olives, the losses in oil would be too important and the trituration would not be profitable. Below that limit and only for technical reasons, the contributor will therefore go in common press.
Over 80 kg in one bringing, the contributor can choose the common press or the making of his/her batch.
Advantages/Disadvantages:
The personal press is a bit more expensive since it mobilizes more staff members (a few cents per kilo) but it allows to have your oil which is interesting for the ‘organic' ones who don't treat their olives, or for those who are located in high return soils, or for those who have a grove which presents a blending or an interesting particularity of taste.
The contributors who only possess picholine trees for instance can be surprised by its herbaceous taste and its bitterness, especially if it is picked up early.
To note and to reassure the ‘small contributors':
Since the general awareness on the malfeasance of phytosanitary products on human health, the majority of amateur olive producers assure us that they make ‘organic' olives while doing nothing on their trees or by only placing fly traps.
Concerning health, it is praiseworthy, and therefore all our small contributors that are worried for their health don't have to worry about the neighbour when they go in common press because nobody treats.
Concerning the fruits, it is less glorious, if the attacks of the flies are precocious, we arrive then with an overall bad sanitary quality which at worst make the rotten fruits fall in September and at best allow us to make a more oxidized oil, less green and less tasty.
This is one of the reasons as to why the mills open earlier nowadays. To manage to obtain fruits in not too bad sanitary condition in order to make a good fruit juice is the motto of the profession!
Far from judging these practices, we try to adapt ourselves but we aren't miracle makers.
We give importance to the disposal of the contributors the notebooks of the AFIDOL which provide every year advices of good ‘organic' practices in order to obtain smaller harvests but safer, because the ‘organic' is the challenge of the future years in agriculture.
IN CABRIERES :
Due to the great capacity of the chain, it is not possible to make a personal press for a bringing that is lower than 300 kg because the losses in oil would be too important.
The contributor will therefore go in common press.
Over 300 kg in one bringing, the contributor can choose the common press or the making of his/her batch.
Advantages/Disadvantages:
They are the same as what has been said before: with more staff members, the press is a bit more expensive (a few cents per kilo) but it allows you to have your oil.