Blog,
A harvest day at the mill
From weighbridge to cellar: what happens to the olives in the hours after they arrive.
Our mill sits two kilometres outside Espejo on the road to Nueva Carteya. At the height of the harvest the gate never closes: our members' tractors and trailers bring in the day's olives.
Reception
Each trailer is weighed and unloaded into one of our four hoppers. We separate by variety and by quality, because olives picked up from the ground can't go in with fruit from the tree.
Cleaning
Two cleaning lines remove leaves, twigs, soil and stones. The leaves are not thrown away: they go to the composting plant.
Milling and malaxing
We run two milling lines. The olives are crushed whole and the paste is stirred slowly so the oil droplets come together.
Separation
The paste goes into the centrifuge, which separates the oil from everything else by weight. The whole process is mechanical: extra virgin oil has nothing added, it is olive juice.
Cellar
Together the two lines can process up to 160,000 kilos of olives every 24 hours. The oil rests in stainless steel tanks, and the cellar holds up to one million kilos.
Bottling
From the cellar we fill the glass and PET bottles and the tins you'll find in our shop.
