Australian Olive Industry Survey: Marketing & Sales ~ Part 13

Olive Product Sales

Many products are sold locally

Olive Product Sales Channels

The most popular sales channels are Food Service Industry, Farmer Markets and Online.

Olive Products – Labelling Compliance

Olive Product Sales – Cellar Door or Tasting Room

22% of Groves have cellar doors with a further 7.4% planning to expand in this area.

Successes and Challenges with Product Sales

Respondents answers:

• Selling to local retail outlets and consumers.
• Providing information and tastings to regular bus groups and informing the benefits of olive oil.
• Selling direct to customers at farmers markets has given us our best return. The supermarket scene is cut throat and unpleasant.
• Marketing
• Networking and competitive pricing. Getting a niche market in the area.
• Good local recognition and reputation for quality. Need to educate people more on the virtues of olive oil.
• Need to increase direct and online sales as the margins are better
• Supermarket prices can be quite unreasonably high.  The mediterranean group know what the product is and disposal is not an issue. Our english ancestors up to say the 1970’s didn’t seem to acknowledge the value of olive oil, since then this situation has been improving.
• A lot of hours in face to face sales. High delivery costs for food service industry and online.
• Distance from markets, transport, packaging costs power costs. The changing generation where the younger ones don’t seem to either want to or know how to pickle olives.
• Time constraints.
• 100% sales of oil maintain current price with increased production.
• Highly awarded EVOO (5 brands = 3 gold + 2 silver in 2016).
• Challenge; decreasing bulk sales & increasing wholesale —> retail —> value added.
• Freshness Organic Cost
• Successes: 1) talking/tasting EVOO with customers and explaining the product Extra Virgin Olive Oil to them. Challenges: as exporter of Australian EVOO, one of the main challenges is to bring Australian EVOO in the perception of consumers who don’t know. 2) Explain difference between Extra Virgin grade and Olive Oil grade.
• Arranging the harvester to arrive when there is no rain.
• Marketing and identifying distribution channels. postage.
• Challenges – delivery of stock, education of suppliers/sellers, obtaining access to local farmers markets
• Successes – maintaining a reasonable price and lifting the expectations of quality, awards & decals, great label
• Dominance of major Australian producer
• Promoting to local providores and restaurants are successes. Challenges are the amount of supply at the moment until the grove starts to produce more
• enough product for demand
• Be real
• Meeting customer expectations , education of customer of our products, prompt delivery, attention to detail and consistency of supply.
• How long do you have??? Call me
• Achieving a sustainable price is the major challenge.
• We produce small batches of olive oil and have a boutique clientele. Most of our olives are table olives and the cost of picking and shortage of labor factored into orchard expenses makes it difficult to make a healthy profit.
• Tasting the product
• Hard to get high price to make any profit
• The challenge is to minimise costs and get a good price in a bulk oil market. Small groves have difficulty in keeping costs low when they have to use contract harvesters and processors. The overheads in marketing your own brand are hard to justify
• Diversity has been our success & challenges have been towards price, imports, cooperative work.
• accessing markets having enough product
• High quality – great feedback; not enough time to devote to grove; weather conditions.
• Have won award at Royal perth show. I’m a boutique olive grower,.
• The challenge is consistency of supply across the year and years, packaging costs and time…time is always the challenge.
• This was my first good year . Everyone in my small town wanted to by my oil. I sold out very quick
• Can always sell my product in bulk if necessary but far more financially positive to package and sell in smaller boutique outlets locally
• Too much oil, too little price offered
• Maintaining supply and demand with our customer base
• Expanding into more bulk sales at a reasonable price
• Marketing
• We are making money!
• Too many to list here
• Constant competition from overseas and misguided view of consumers of what IS a good olive
• Short timeframe to remain EVOO.
• Finding sufficient markets to ensure a steady flow.
• Getting our product into local shops
• Increasing demand through making oil of high and consistent quality.
• Competing coconut oil and misleading other veg oils
• Successes; Locals keen to support our product.  Challenges; packaging and labelling costs and requirements, very time consuming.
• Quality and hygiene go hand in hand. A good retailer will move a good product
• Repeat customers start to make it easier.
• We sell mostly through Australia Post direct to customers, mostly restaurants. Bigger orders by freight on pallets.
• The weather at the local market, impact on weekends.
• I have been able to sell all my oil through recommendation and word of mouth.
• time…teaching customers the virtues of good olive oils
• As a credited VFM member I find it very difficult to be find opportunities to sell at local VFM markets due to domination of other olive product suppliers.
• On the whole I am successful. The low price of bulk olive oil for restaurants and the fickle nature of the restaurant trade are a challenge.
• Successes are direct communication with the public.
• Challenge: to convince customers supermarket olive oil is inferior to the oil produced by the grower.

Marketing Budget

More than 60% of respondents spend less than $1000 per annum.