July 2012 Volume 1, Issue 3

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1 July 2012 Volume 1, Issue 3 Words from your CCOG President, Art Kishiyama With the hot weather, most of us will do our orchard work in the early morning hours. In my orchard, fruit set has been quite heavy at the higher elevations, and significantly lighter in the lower (colder) elevations. This is the first time I ve seen this wide variation in nine seasons but, that s why we call this farming. I m also regularly spraying GF-120 and have saved a lot of money by taking advantage of CCOG s favorable volume pricing. By the time you see this, we will have formally submitted our comments and recommendations on the proposed amendment to the County Land Use Ordinance relating the Olive Oil Processing, Tasting, and Retail Sales. Rather than being considering a manufacturing facility involved in the rendering of fats, we will now be considered an Ag Process similar to wineries and their tasting rooms. We owe a lot of thanks to our Ordinance Committee and many other CCOG members that were pro-actively engaged in the preparation of our inputs. We continue to grow and be recognized with an aggressive new member out-reach program. Links to and from our CCOG website are being established with other websites and many more members (but not all) have chosen to be listed. CCOG members continue to be winners! Collectively, we were awarded 4 Gold Medals at the Napa County Fair, including a Best in Show and Best in Class. On our home turf at the California Mid-State Fair, we earned nearly half of the medals awarded, 11 of which were Gold including two Best opf Class! These awards continue to identify the Central Coast as a center of EVOO excellence. We just concluded our 2nd workshop of the year, Understanding the Proposed Federal Marketing Order. We had a good turnout and learned a lot from Gregg Kelley, President and CEO of the California Olive Ranch. We now have a better sense of direction for further deliberations and discussions. We also enjoyed our Summer Potluck Social and especially the pink Himalayan sea salt dessert. If you weren t there, you missed an great event. To get the most out of your CCOG membership, attend, get involved, contribute, and share! Artisan growers & producers promoting excellence in EVOO Inside This Edition: President s Note General Meeting Recap Next General Meeting is Sunday Aug. 5 at 4:30 PM July 22 Workshop: Federal Marketing Order & Social Competition Winners Napa & Mid State Fairs Welcome New Members PO Box 1151 Paso Robles, CA Info@centralcoastolivegrowers.org

2 This month we kicked off the social portion with a tasting! Ron Sanders & Susan O'Reilly of Alta Cresta Olive Orchard and Audrey Burnam and Gregg Bone of Kiler Ridge demonstrated their skills, product knowledge and yummy oils during this pre-meeting social gathering. Later during the meeting Gregg talked about the importance of credit card acceptance and the ease of executing this with the Square card reader he uses with his iphone. Ron talked about the importance of knowing your products and their attributes. This was a great way to start our regular meeting and was on target with our vision of excellence in education, marketing, quality and sharing.

3 Art covered a lot of material including updates on the Land Use Ordinance, upcoming workshops the Mid-State Fair, the Oil Festival in August, Savor the Central Coast and additional possible marketing opportunities. Kris Beale of the Central Coast Vitners Team (CCVT) was introduced and her discussion topic focused on sustainability and standards and the positive point system (PPS) that she was instrumental in developing at CCVT for SIP certification. CCTV is now 300 members strong with growers ranches ranging from acres and averaging about 80 acres. CCVT was one of five associations recognized by EPA for sustainable efforts. CCVT hosts the Sustainable Ag Expo each November now in its 8th year and in Monterey for Then, of course, we we re off to AJ Spurs! Missed this meeting? You can find a copy of the June 3 Meeting Notes on the Website home page.

4 Meetings now kick-off with social 1/2- hour at 4:30 PM & call to order at 5 PM. We re talking farming. We re talking sales. Sunday, July 22, 4-8 PM CCOG members learned a great deal about a wide range of geo-political issues driving the world-wide olive oil market and a better understanding of why Federal action was the preferred course of action. Gregg Kelley, President and CEO of the California Olive Ranch gave an excellent presentation and led an interactive discussion. CCOG members in attendance now better understand how the proposed Marketing Order will affect us all. This will be discussed further at our regular meeting on August 5th. More details and pictures of the workshop will be published in our next newsletter. To download this flyer go to the Website Event s page and click on the event: Mark your calendars! How can you get more out of your CCOG membership? Attend. Contribute. Share experiences. Voice concerns. With well over 50 farm members we're gaining real strength in numbers. Astrid Jansen of Foxdale Farm collaborated with Michael Hollarman, PCA with Crop Production Services in Paso to secure a group price on GF-120 for olive fly mitigation saving farms over $40 a gallon. Nice work! Thank you to new member Chuck McCown our newsletter just got a whole lot better! Chuck has volunteered to takeover the picture taking for our meetings and workshops. This will be a big improvement moving forward. WILL BE YOU! It is the mid-year point for 2012 are many initiatives and marketing opportunities are on the table. It it time for two-way feedback, discussion and time to identify areas of greatest member interest and decide how the final months of the year should shape up.

5 Baker Wine Grape Analysis Paso Robles Olive U Cholame Pablo & Paula Sanchez Olivos de la Loma Paso Robles Pink Family Farm Creston Robbins Family Farm San Luis Obispo On June 28, 2012 the California Mid-State Fair hosted the Central Coast Olive Oil Competition. The 2012 competition had a great number of entries with over 50 olive oils entered. CCOG winners did extremely well. They are: ALTA CRESTA ORCHARD FANDANGO OLIVE OIL (Gold) HOMESTEAD OLIVE RANCH OLIO NUEVO (Gold) OLIVAS DE ORO OLIVE CO. (2 Best of class, 5 Gold) OLIVOS DE LA LOMA ROBBINS FAMILY FARM (2 Gold) SAN MIGUEL OLIVE FARM (Gold) SOLANA FARMS (Gold) Tiber Canyon Ranch San Luis Obispo In their second year of competition they received 75 oils from 27 producers. Best of Show awards were presented in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and Flavored Olive Oil. Additionally, 9 Best of Class, 28 Gold Medal, 35 Silver Medal, and 8 Bronze Medals were awarded. SAN MIGUEL OLIVE FARM (Best of Show, Gold) We Olive Paso Robles OLIO NUEVO (Best of Class, Gold) FANDANGO OLIVE OIL (Gold) TEMPLETON OLIVE OIL (GOLD) KITEHAWK FARM ROBBINS FAMILY FARM

6 We need your participation! We have added several more farms to our website and changed the member listings to one single page. If your farm is not yet listed, please the Webmaster the information you would like to include at: This free advertising is part of your membership benefits, but you have to opt in. Find an interesting article? Shoot it on over to the webmaster. The website will become a wonderful tool for all of us if it is kept relevant and up-to-date. at: webmaster@centralcoastolivegrowers.org. Thank you all for you positive and constructive feedback, it helps shape our publication and reflect our collective goals. Postponing the Spotlight segment was a difficult decision, but too many deadlines and farming issues squeezed this out another couple of months. Education Committee: Jerry Schaffer, Joe Laraneta, and John Berardo Website Committee: Barry Ross, Audrey Burnam, Karen Tallent Olive Oil Ordinance: Bob Roos, Nick Gladdis, Clotilde Julien The September newsletter will feature one or two member farms, their background and operations. We hope to make this an ongoing part of the newsletter and a means of getting to know our fellow members better. The Board is interested in your comments and suggestions. Please submit commentary to: info@centralcoastolivegrowers.org. As you may know, the Board is working short-handed, with the Vice-President seat recently vacated. If you think you might be interested, or know someone who would be an asset to the team, please contact Art. Now is a great time to become more involved with CCOG. Display your CCOG membership with this 14 x 16 light weight metal sign. Total cost? Only $28 and that includes taxes. Just bring your check to the next meeting.