Masterton Olive Press Manager Bill Hay tells the story of how in the early days of the Olive Press, olive grove owners would arrive with their olives piled into crates the size of shopping baskets to be tipped by hand into the press and any olive oil produced would be carried away in plastic bottles.

Owners Karen and Ian Juno began preparing for planting the first of their 1280 Olive trees in October 2001. Before planting could begin, they manually ‘grass grubbed’ the necessary clearings of thick, deep-rooted rye grass in readiness. Their aim was to give the trees, sourced from Italy, Spain, France and Greece a good start without pasture competition.