Welcome!

Stuffed Olives, Cured Olives, Olive Spreads, Dirty Martini MixCheese, wine and olives...three California products, three favorites of connoisseurs worldwide, three delicious partners. And now, M&CP Farms, of Orland, California, has introduced a gourmet olive at a reasonable price. This new olive label, Penna Olives, will be known as "California's Everyday Specialty."

 

 

 

 

Forecast:
Light Fresh Olive Crop for 2008

Fresh olive season is over, the Black Fresh Sevillano Olives availability ended midnite PST 11-21-2008. We stopped taking orders for the Black Manzanillas as of 11 AM PST 11-18-2008. The online order form below is completely inactive. This was a very short season. Check out the Curing Fresh Olives FAQ for recipes to cure them.

The 2008 fresh olive crop is going to be very light. Due to the severity of a freeze we experienced in April 2008, this could be the worst year to date for the fresh olive crop. The Sevillanos and Manzanillas will be affected the most. We anticipate a crop of 10 to 15% of the volume of last years. We have set prices (see below), they are higher than last year. The harvest season will be shorter as the fruit matures quicker.

The Green Fresh Olive season began September second, 2008 and ended September 23rd. The Black Fresh Olive season ended November 21st.

We will do our best to have the most current information posted here. Check back here on the Fresh Olive web page , to see if the online order form is active for the type of fresh olive you want.  The order form for each of the different varieties will be enabled as each becomes available, and will later be disabled when we run out or the season ends.

Each year we get more customers interested in home curing their own olives, so if you are really interested, please don't wait until the last minute to order.


We will only offer this product when it is available; for green olives, that is usually from about the middle of September 15th till about October 20th; for black olives, that is usually in November (weather permitting.) This can vary from year to year. But we will only have these products available for sale during their period of availability. We may take orders a little earlier, but they won't be processed until the product is available.

We will keep the page open all year to let you know how the season is going. The online purchase ability will only be enabled when the product is available (or shortly before.)

We now have an online advice forum for those of you interested in communicating with the olive specialists at M&CP farms (the owners of greatolives.com.) This was created in July, 2005 for sharing information about curing fresh olives. You can reach it at www.curingfresholives.blogspot.com. This forum is a BLOG, also known as a "web log." If you would like more information about blogging, please check out www.blogger.com.

These olives are fresh from the tree. If you would like some information on curing fresh olives, check out oliveoilsource.com, or go to our Recipes page for a Mediterranean Partida Style Recipe, a Lye Process for Green-Ripe Olives, and a couple of Fresh Black Olive Cures. These are just a couple of examples for resources on olive curing information.

The raw olives will be delivered in boxes containing 10 pounds of the type and size you specify, except that the olives offered as "field run" will contain various sizes. They will be shipped FedEx Ground. To the right is a picture of the type of box we use, it is 5 inches high, 8 1/4 inches deep by 16 inches wide. The total box weight will be about 11 pounds.

If you wish to order more than 300 pounds of fresh olives, please contact us, as they can be shipped common carrier in 18 pound lug boxes for a reduced price.

The Green Sevillano olives can be ordered in the following sizes:

Note: These sizes are only a guide, olives are actually sorted by a system that involves a quantity of olives that achieve a common weight.

The Lucques, Manzanilla olives (all types) and the Black Sevillano are not sized, there will be various sizes just as they come from the orchards, which we will call "field run." They will be run through a sorter to remove debris and fruit that is too small to be of value.

Almost all varieties and sizes of olive will sell for the same price per box, the exception is the Lucques olive. Once cannery prices are announced in our area, we will post our selling price on this page. To give you some indication of prices, from 2003 to 2007 our olives sold for $14.00 (USD) per 10 pound box. This year it will go up to $18.00 (USD) per 10 pound box (except for Lucques, which we price a bit higher.)

The online order form below will only have those items active as they become available.

Online Order Form: For Fresh Olives

Updated Nov. 21, 2008 11:59 PM PST
Fresh olive season has started as of September 2, 2008, and ended 11-21-08.

Olive Type Olive Size Price per Box Availability
Green Sevillano Colossal
$18.00

No longer available as of 10AM 9-23-08 PST.
Green Sevillano Jumbo
$18.00

No longer available as of 10AM 9-23-08 PST.
Green Sevillano Extra Large
$18.00

No longer available as of 10AM 9-23-08 PST.
Green Sevillano Large
$18.00

No longer available as of 4PM 9-9-08 PST.
Black Sevillano Field Run
$18.00
Not available so of midnite PST 11-21-2008
Green Manzanilla Field Run
$18.00

No longer available as of 10AM 9-23-08 PST.
Black Manzanilla Field Run
$18.00
No longer available so of 11AM PST 11-18-2008
Green Lucques Field Run
$19.00

No longer available as of 10AM 9-23-08 PST.

* The Manzanilla olives (all types), Black Sevillano and Green Lucques are not sized, there will be various sizes just as they come from the orchards, which we will call "field run." They will be run through a sorter to remove debris and fruit that is too small to be of value.

** The black olives are available in November, weather permitting. It is possible for orchards to lose their entire crop of black olives. To purchase, please check this page to confirm availability and place your order. In 2004, black olive availability lasted until December 1st. In 2005, black Manzanilla olive availability only lasted from Nov. 7 to Nov. 18, and black Sevillano lasted from Nov. 7 to Nov. 22.

***Or until we run out, remember, this is a low yield harvest.

2005 Olive Crop Pictures