From the Land to the Table (Production Process)

Achieving excellence in any field means putting in all the passion, study, and resources.

To achieve excellence in our oils, we must control every phase of the process down to the smallest detail. And this begins once the olive harvest of the previous season is completed.

The first task is pruning, typically done in January and February. Through pruning, we remove old, unproductive branches, ensure good aeration and sunlight exposure, and reduce the workload of the olive tree by directing its energy toward the branches that will sprout with more vigor, produce better flowering, and yield the best fruit in terms of flesh-to-pit ratio. This ensures the harvest for the following season.

If everything proceeds optimally, the next natural process is pollination and fertilization. During this period, the fruit will begin to set. Naturally, a competition for nutrients begins between fertilized flowers, unfertilized flowers, and new shoots, which will produce the olives for the next harvest.

This is a crucial and delicate moment. It's essential to prevent any pest from causing defoliation and flower drop. To this end, EL POAIG’s technicians perform soil and olive leaf analyses to determine the nutrient and water needs of the trees, reducing stress and ensuring a better harvest.

An excess of fruit can inhibit the flowering of the following year, a phenomenon known as "biennial bearing" in olive trees.

Pest and disease monitoring continues throughout the entire process of fruit growth and maturation, determining the quantity and quality of the harvest we aim to obtain.

The fruit will grow until autumn when the skin begins to change color, and the processes of oil synthesis and accumulation start. This process is known as "lipogenesis."

From this point, weekly random harvests are conducted to extract the oil from the fruits, monitor the oil yield, and optimize the organoleptic characteristics of the oil until reaching the balance point that Manuel Arnau, the master miller at EL POAIG, determines to achieve excellent oil quality.

When the time for harvest arrives, Manuel coordinates the work to ensure that the time between fruit detachment and its extraction and milling is as short as possible.

The harvest is carried out using mechanical milking techniques that prevent the breaking of new shoots and damage to the olives or using a manual vibrator. The selected olive trees are supervised, and the method to be used is determined.

Millenary olive trees have a large canopy that can reach over 150 m². Therefore, different harvesting techniques may be used for the same tree depending on orientation, fruit quantity, accessibility, aeration, etc.

The harvested olives are transported to the mill.

Once the fruit arrives, it undergoes another inspection, discarding batches with bruises, epicarp ruptures, or ripening indices higher than required. The olives are then de-leafed and passed to the crusher, which breaks the olives to the appropriate size, depending on the fruit's water-to-oil ratio.

Throughout the process, we minimize aeration to avoid oxidation of the olives. For this, the highest technology is employed in oil extraction.

From the crusher, where the olives remain for just seconds, they move to the malaxer, where they stay at room temperature. At no point is there a temperature increase, with the malaxing lasting 20 to 30 minutes. The "mill master" determines the appropriate malaxing time based on how the entire fruit growth process has developed, the contribution of irrigation or rainfall and nutrients, and the organoleptic evaluation we have conducted, which determines the fruitiness, bitterness, and pungency of the oil we aim to obtain.

After the malaxing time has passed, the paste is injected into the horizontal centrifuge, where the oil is separated from the rest of the olive, all at a minimal injection rate. We obtain a clean green oil, discarding the part of the oil that, during the separation phase, is close to the paste.

Low injection rates and low depletion provide us with clean oils of the highest quality, with an average yield of 11 to 14% oil per kilo of olives. These are low yields, but they ensure that EL POAIG oils are of excellent quality.

For oils that present high astringency and/or moisture, a second pass through the vertical centrifuge is recommended to achieve a smoother palate without losing polyphenols.

The EL POAIG oil is then ready and is transferred directly to stainless steel tanks, kept away from light and inerted with noble gases such as nitrogen or argon, and in the absence of oxygen to preserve all its properties.

Bottling is done directly from the tank using a system designed by EL POAIG engineers for the exclusive white porcelain bottles.

EL POAIG oils are bottled on demand. We do not store our oils in bottles. This guarantees the highest quality and the shortest time in the bottle, minimizing potential degradation processes and preserving the organoleptic properties of our precious olive juice.

All of this ensures that EL POAIG oils are considered among the best olive oils in the world.