Corto Bets on Olives as Crop of The Future in Changing Sacramento Valley

Despite all the chal­lenges, Cliff Little is bull­ish on the future of California olive oil pro­duc­tion.

Little is the pres­i­dent of Corto Olive, the sec­ond-largest pro­ducer in the United States. The com­pany pri­mar­ily grows Arbequina, Arbosana, and Koroneiki olives in the Sacramento Valley at super-high den­sity, and it also buys olives from other California pro­duc­ers.

He told Olive Oil Times that cli­mate change and evolv­ing con­sumer tastes make olive oil an increas­ingly viable crop in the Golden State.

“Corto’s founders saw high-effi­ciency olive orchards as a way to not only pro­duce the fresh­est olive oil, due to the speed at which the olives can be har­vested and milled but also as an oppor­tu­nity to keep farm­ing in California due to the low level of inputs needed,” Little told Olive Oil Times.

“Due to the inven­tion of super-high-den­sity olive farm­ing and the advance­ments in milling tech­nol­ogy over the last five years, we can now pro­duce extra vir­gin olive oil at scale… when the olives are at their peak of fla­vor and fresh­ness,” Little added.

Traditional California crops require more labor, water and fer­til­izer than super-high-den­sity olive groves demand. According to some esti­mates, olives use up to 50 per­cent less water than other Sacramento Valley crops, such as wal­nuts, almonds and pis­ta­chios.

“Minimal labor, water and fer­til­izer require­ments, ver­sus crops that have been tra­di­tion­ally farmed in California, along with the olive trees’ abil­ity to sequester car­bon, make farm­ing olives for olive oil the California crop of the future,” Little said.

Part of the poten­tial for olive farm­ing in California is the abil­ity to cre­ate a cir­cu­lar econ­omy where the vast major­ity of the waste pro­duced in the process can be reused, reduc­ing costs and improv­ing sus­tain­abil­ity.

“Without tak­ing the proper steps to limit the envi­ron­men­tal impact of our milling, stor­age, pack­ag­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tems, we would be ignor­ing the incred­i­ble poten­tial for cre­at­ing a cir­cu­lar econ­omy in olive oil and pro­mot­ing it as one of the health­i­est and most sus­tain­able food prod­ucts that exist,” Little said.

Corto har­vests its olives early in the autumn using over-the-row har­vesters to remove olives from the branch at the peak of ripeness, just as they turn from green to vio­let. The olives are trans­ported to the company’s mod­ern mill within hours of har­vest­ing.

The olives are stored in a cli­mate-con­trolled cel­lar until cus­tomer orders are processed. The result­ing extra vir­gin olive oil is pack­aged directly from the cel­lar in bag-in-box pack­ag­ing and dark-glass bot­tles.

Little said the spe­cially designed pack­ages pro­tect the oil and ensure fresh­ness by min­i­miz­ing harm­ful expo­sure to light, air and heat.

To bet­ter track and improve sus­tain­abil­ity, the com­pany is begin­ning to col­lect data that will allow them to make tar­geted inter­ven­tions to become greener and more effi­cient. ​“We are still early in col­lect­ing data that will help us to quan­tify the pos­i­tive envi­ron­men­tal impacts of our olive oil pro­duc­tion,” Little said.

“Research from other coun­tries shows the envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fit of olive farm­ing and pro­duc­tion, but we want to fully under­stand the pos­i­tive impli­ca­tions that farm­ing olives for olive oil will have for California farm­ers and proces­sors,” he added.

Along with the poten­tial envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits, Little reit­er­ated that olives are a low-labor crop, an increas­ingly impor­tant issue in a state where sea­sonal work­ers can be hard to find.

He also pointed out that the over­all sector’s car­bon foot­print can con­tinue to be low­ered by expand­ing domes­tic pro­duc­tion and cut­ting down on car­bon-emit­ting imports.

While bring­ing olive oil to the U.S. from Europe, North Africa and South America emits plenty of car­bon diox­ide – ship­ping accounts for three per­cent of global car­bon diox­ide emis­sions – research from the University of Jaén, the International Olive Council and Juan Vilar Strategic Consultants all con­firm that olive groves of all types suc­cess­fully sequester car­bon diox­ide, though to vary­ing degrees.

The 2016 IOC study indi­cated that a hectare of olive groves can­cels out one person’s annual car­bon foot­print.

The research also found that pro­duc­ing one liter of olive oil cap­tures 10.64 kilo­grams of atmos­pheric car­bon diox­ide. Further, the world’s pro­duc­tion of olive oil could absorb the emis­sions of a city of more than seven mil­lion inhab­i­tants.

However, research from the University of Jaén found that tra­di­tional olive groves sequester sig­nif­i­cantly more car­bon diox­ide than super-high-den­sity groves.

Still, in its 2023 annual impact report, California Olive Ranch, the largest olive oil pro­ducer in the U.S., reported that its super-high-den­sity groves are a net car­bon sink, seques­ter­ing more car­bon diox­ide than the process of grow­ing, har­vest­ing and milling the olives emit.

Along with the crop’s ben­e­fits to California’s cli­mate, Little said the organolep­tic and health ben­e­fits of extra vir­gin olive oil had caught U.S. con­sumers’ atten­tion.

“We are con­fi­dent that once con­sumers in the U.S. have the abil­ity to expe­ri­ence fresh, fall-har­vested olive oil and under­stand why the fresh­ness of their oil is so impor­tant to not only the qual­ity of the dishes that they cre­ate but also their health, it will be a very hard deci­sion to buy any­thing else,” Little said.

Little described the Covid-19 pan­demic as a water­shed moment for olive oil con­sump­tion in the U.S., with more con­sumers learn­ing to cook with olive oil at home and com­ing to value extra vir­gin olive oil despite ris­ing prices.

“We saw a big spike in sales dur­ing the pan­demic, and that’s remained steady since,” Little told Olive Oil Times in a sep­a­rate 2022 inter­view.

Little believes that con­sumers have become more edu­cated about extra vir­gin olive oil in recent years and are now less will­ing to sub­sti­tute it with lower-qual­ity olive oil or other types of edi­ble oils. Consumption fig­ures in the coun­try sup­port his the­ory.

While he acknowl­edged the impor­tance of e‑commerce for olive oil sales, Little said the company’s pri­mary focus is sell­ing to restau­rants and the food ser­vice indus­try.

To that end, win­ning awards, such as the Silver Award earned by Corto Olive at the 2023 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition for its medium-inten­sity Koroneiki, helped the com­pany bur­nish its rep­u­ta­tion as a reli­able and high-qual­ity sup­plier.

Corto Olive also works to stand out in the com­pet­i­tive food ser­vice mar­ket by infus­ing its extra vir­gin olive oil with other fresh California fla­vors to pro­duce a range of fla­vored olive oils.

The company’s Agrumato-Method was inspired by the Corto family’s Nonno Amerigo and his child­hood mem­o­ries of olive har­vest­ing in Italy.

The process involves crush­ing and cold-extract­ing olives simul­ta­ne­ously with fresh sea­sonal ingre­di­ents grown in California, includ­ing chili, lemon­grass and basil.

Looking ahead, Little plans to con­tinue expand­ing Corto’s oper­a­tions, bet­ting that olives will con­tinue to thrive in California and olive oil cul­ture will expand in the U.S.

“I think olives are suited well for the long term,” Little said. ​“We’re still actively look­ing for grow­ers to plant and adding more acres our­selves. We’re still very hope­ful for the future.”