The winners are … Awardwinning olive oil producers Evelyn and Craig Seath at home among the olive trees on their property in Haunted Gully Road, Beaconsfield.
By Paul Dunlop
FOOD lovers wanting the good oil on where to find great olives need look no further than Beaconsfield couple Craig and Evelyn Seath.
The Seaths were honoured last week at the 2006 Australian Olive Expo.
Judges in the 10th annual national extra virgin olive oil show at the Canberra exhibition awarded a silver medal to the Seaths for their Haunted Gully picual oil.
“We were rapt,” Evelyn said.
“We were one of the smallest growers there and it was our first competition so we are stoked. It was a very big thrill.”
The picual oil is one of four varieties produced from the olive grove on Craig and Evelyn’s property in Haunted Gully Road, Beaconsfield.
Craig, who works for CSIRO, and Evelyn, a teacher at St Francis Xavier College in Berwick, have enjoyed a stunning start to their olive oil business.
The couple sell their oils through a few select retail outlets and the Pakenham, Drouin, Gembrook and Berwick markets.
Judges at the expo, which attracts olive oil producers from around Australia, praised the Haunted Gully Road oil for its “green fresh tomato aromas and flavours and nice intensity of flavour matched with a good level of bitterness and pungency”.
The silver award marked a major milestone in the Seaths’ operation, which began when Craig and Evelyn handplanted 300 olive trees on a onehectare site in 2001.
“We’re pretty nutty about the whole thing,” Evelyn said.
The four varieties they produce all have a different taste.
Despite being relative newcomers to the industry, Craig and Evelyn are enjoying a growing reputation.
