With Roots in Tradition, Producer Behind Azeite 4C Turns Focus to Quality

Summary

Azeite 4C in Portugal cul­ti­vates olives in a tra­di­tional pro­duc­tion zone with irri­ga­tion equip­ment, win­ning awards at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. The farm focuses on sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion prac­tices, empha­siz­ing soil man­age­ment, proper fer­til­iza­tion, and mechan­i­cal har­vest­ing to ensure high-qual­ity olive oil. The region faces chal­lenges such as a lack of spe­cial­ized labor and cli­mate change, but pro­duc­ers like Azeite 4C are opti­mistic about the future due to grow­ing con­sumer aware­ness and export oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Nestled in the Portuguese munic­i­pal­ity of Serpa, in the south­ern region of Alentejo, tra­di­tional cul­ti­va­tions of wheat, bar­ley, and oats share fer­tile, clay-rich soil with sheep pas­tures, vine­yards, olive orchards and cork oak forests.

“We man­age just over 10,000 olive trees in an area that has been a tra­di­tional olive pro­duc­tion zone since Roman times,” Francisco Lopes, owner of Azeite 4C, told Olive Oil Times.

The trees are spread across four plots of land, rang­ing in size from five to ten hectares, in an area recently equipped with irri­ga­tion equip­ment.

“The soil is excel­lent, pre­dom­i­nantly clay with some lime­stone. The cli­mate is Mediterranean, with hot sum­mers and rel­a­tively mild win­ters,” Lopes said.

Azeite 4C won a Gold Award and a Silver Award at the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition from Frantoio and Cobrançosa olives, the main vari­eties cul­ti­vated on the farm.

“Each vari­ety has its pecu­liar taste. That’s why we only com­mer­cial­ize mono­va­ri­etal olive oils,” Lopes explained.

The pre­vi­ous har­vest, which yielded the award-win­ning oils, was not an easy one in Azeite 4C’s cor­ner of Portugal’s largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing region.

“In 2024, win­ter and spring were rather dry, while in the autumn we faced fre­quent rain,” Lopes said. ​“That greatly com­pli­cated the har­vest, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to ensure high-qual­ity olive oil pro­duc­tion.”

However, the upcom­ing 2025/26 crop year appears promis­ing. ​“This year, win­ter was mild but unusu­ally rainy. The trees have recov­ered won­der­fully, and the cur­rent blos­som­ing is impres­sive and beau­ti­ful. We’re far from the end of the sea­son, but it could be an excel­lent year,” Lopes said.

For its inten­sive orchards, the com­pany adopted a drip irri­ga­tion sys­tem and fol­lows an inte­grated pro­duc­tion pro­to­col.

“Thanks to this approach, we aim to pro­duce sus­tain­ably, uti­liz­ing both bio­log­i­cal and chem­i­cal con­trol prac­tices while pri­or­i­tiz­ing nat­ural reg­u­la­tion mech­a­nisms,” Lopes explained.

According to Lopes, cru­cial aspects of the farm’s activ­ity include soil man­age­ment tech­niques that main­tain fer­til­ity while ensur­ing the health and pro­duc­tiv­ity of the olive trees.

Proper fer­til­iza­tion, prun­ing, pest and dis­ease con­trol, and mechan­i­cal har­vest­ing are well-estab­lished rou­tines in the farm’s oper­a­tions, all of which Lopes said require con­stant atten­tion to the groves.

“It means being able to grow healthy olives, under­stand­ing the right time to har­vest and act­ing quickly and pre­cisely in pro­cess­ing. In a few words, be knowl­edge­able and have a strong desire to do things per­fectly,” he said.

While Azeite 4C was founded in 2016, Lopes’ expe­ri­ence in olive oil pro­duc­tion runs much deeper.

“My fam­ily oper­ated a large tra­di­tional stone olive oil mill for over 50 years, equipped with hydraulic presses, olive pomace and sun­flower extrac­tion sys­tems, and an olive oil refin­ery,” Lopes said.

“I stud­ied chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing and worked with my fam­ily for about four years. I decided to resume the fam­ily tra­di­tion ten years after my retire­ment, at the age of 74,” he added.

This sig­nif­i­cant expe­ri­ence high­lights the vast dif­fer­ences between Lopes’ cur­rent award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­tion and the tra­di­tional prac­tices of the region’s past.

“There’s a world of dif­fer­ence. Olives were tra­di­tion­ally col­lected from the ground in December, January, or even later. They were over­ripe, full of worms,” he said. ​“At that time, olive oil was extracted sev­eral days after col­lec­tion, once the olives had par­tially fer­mented. The result­ing oil had lit­tle in com­mon with today’s pro­duc­tion.”

“Today, pro­duc­tion is based on trans­port­ing healthy, freshly har­vested olives to the mills for imme­di­ate pro­cess­ing,” he added. ​“Nowadays, the keys to qual­ity lie in the health of the olives, the tim­ing of pro­cess­ing, and the absolute clean­li­ness of the equip­ment.”

One of the sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for pro­duc­ers in the region remains the lack of spe­cial­ized labor.

“The lack of work­force is a huge issue. Currently, most of it comes from India, Nepal and Pakistan,” Lopes said. ​“Although mech­a­nized, costs are very high. This is encour­ag­ing farm­ers to shift from inten­sive to super-inten­sive plan­ta­tions.” 

“Climate change com­pli­cates mat­ters, espe­cially for those with­out irri­ga­tion. We’re for­tu­nate in that regard,” he added.

Encouraging signs for pro­duc­ers focused on qual­ity come from the grow­ing aware­ness among con­sumers.

“Things are mov­ing now,” Lopes said. ​“That’s because olive oil pro­duc­tion has become fre­quent news in Portugal, and the coun­try is among the top pro­duc­ers in both qual­ity and vol­ume.” 

While the farm sells a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of its pro­duc­tion through spe­cial­ized shops in Portugal, its exports are pri­mar­ily directed to France, Belgium, Poland and Hungary.

According to Lopes, the out­look for qual­ity olive oil pro­duc­ers is promis­ing, and new entre­pre­neurs and farm­ers may find oppor­tu­ni­ties in the sec­tor.

“As a per­fec­tion­ist, I would encour­age any­one inter­ested to first learn about olive cul­ture and olive oil qual­ity,” he said. ​“Be dis­ci­plined, observe the trees reg­u­larly, and act promptly with the ser­vices nec­es­sary to develop and pro­tect the orchards.”

“Be hum­ble and respect nature. Be pas­sion­ate and place qual­ity first,” he con­cluded.