SOUTH Australian artisan table olive producers Craig McClory and Andrea Chick purchased their Taylorville property almost 20 years ago after falling in love with the tranquillity of the River Murray.
The couple, who moved to the Riverland West from Adelaide, have transformed their holiday property into a successful business, Toolunka Creek Olives.
Craig worked in the executive recruitment industry and Andrea in transport and banking.
They are Australia’s only artisan olive producers focusing solely on paddock-to-plate production of table olives.
Toolunka’s produce can be found in many of Australia’s finest restaurants through its national distribution network. The couple have a huge varietal range and select their produce from circa 9000 trees across three South Australian properties.
“We were looking for a holiday property on the river and whilst on a houseboat holiday in the area we found Toolunka Estate,” Andrea said.
We fell in love with the property straight away.”
The fruit property was a weekender for the former Adelaide corporate couple until 12 years ago, when they decided to make it their permanent home.
Craig and Andrea cleared acres of non-productive fruit trees to make way for more olive trees.
In 2020 they established the Toolunka Estate retail brand and now supply the likes of Harris Farm Markets in the eastern states and Dan Murphy’s nationally.
Craig said the Riverland’s Mediterranean climate was “perfect” for growing olives.
“Anywhere along the River Murray is undoubtedly the best place in Australia to grow olives,” he said.
“Just simply because of the climate and quality of irrigation water.
"Many olives in Australia are grown with bore water which can be high in salinity and prevent required commercial production.
We attempted to harvest table olives in the South East in 2014, irrigated from a local bore, which did not produce a quality product.”
The couple did however discover Keith ,which has become home to their storage and processing plant.
Toolunka Estate’s retail olives are also packaged at Orana in Adelaide, as the business is committed to supporting people with disabilities.
Craig said the table-olive-growing season for their properties runs from February to June.
He said having a farms in different areas of the state ensures the harvest is staggered due to the different micro climates in each region.
“We might pick sevillano olives here at Toolunka and a month later we will pick that same variety on another farm,” Craig said.
Toolunka Estate’s olive trees are grown without synthetic fertilisers, chemical pesticides or toxic chemicals. Andrea said their hand-picked table olives are naturally processed using a traditional Italian recipe.
“After picking they are placed in a cool room to bring out any blemishes or bruising and then graded within 24 hours, before being placed in a brine solution to process for a minimum of 12 months,” she said.
Toolunka Estate has also developed a mix of olive brine and table olives for dirty martini lovers or those keen to try.
Craig said the 250ml bottles of olive brine and 300gm jars of green martini olives are being distributed at liquor stores nationally. He said after producing the olive brine to add to martinis, chefs also became interested.
“Some chefs also are now asking us for olive brine to use for cooking,” he said.
Craig said the olive brine taken from the six varieties of green olives they produce has flavours of chilli, garlic, fennel, and citrus.
“It is blended and filtered five times,” he said.
To learn how to make a dirty martini visit dirtymartinimix.com.au.