Texas' olive oil industry has begun to bubble up.

It's taken the state's half dozen commercial orchards more than a decade to squeeze out enough golden green oil to gain credibility.

In 2007, Texas olive growers pressed 100 tons of olives yielding 3,000 gallons of olive oil, said Jim Henry, founder of the Texas Olive Oil Council. This year, he expects to get about half that because of poor fruit production stemming from bad weather, he said.

Next year, though, he expects a bumper crop of 300 tons of olives yielding about 9,000 gallons of oil. Henry's Texas Olive Ranch in Carrizo Springs sells its extra virgin olive oil at Central Market and H-E-B for $13.99 for a 14.3-ounce bottle.

“The industry virtually had no credibility until we produced a commercial size harvest last year,'' Henry said. “Once that happened, we've seen all kinds of momentum; and now there's something to base it on besides people's dreams and ideas. It doesn't mean that it is a sure thing or that it is easy.”

Other olive producers such as the First Texas Olive Oil Co. at the Bella Vista Ranch in Wimberley make olive oil and sell it on-site. John “Jack” Dougherty, who tends 800 trees, got a bumper crop this year, but declined to share specific numbers. He thinks everyone desperately wants the industry to work in Texas, but he has his doubts it will take off.

Since its founding in the mid-1990s, the Texas olive oil industry has become romanticized with olive growing areas dubbed the Tuscany of Texas and the Plains of Spain.

“Truthfully, it's not a romantic endeavor, it's a business and you have to treat it like that,'' Dougherty said.

The Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard in Elmendorf just harvested its crop of green and purple olives and plans to bottle them for table olives and for use in soaps, lotions, chocolates and other items.

“One of the things I tell people is this is agriculture,'' said Saundra C. Winokur, owner of Sandy Oaks, about 20 miles south of San Antonio.

“I think it's a wonderful business, but we're still in early stages in Texas'' she said while maneuvering a golf cart around her 40-acre orchard. “And we're still figuring out how to grow and produce olive trees here.”

Winokur started with 450 trees in 1998, but now she's got more than 10,000 olive trees in 28 varieties. The Spanish olive trees, including Arbequina, Arbosana, Mission and Manzanilla, grow best in the sandy soil, Winokur said. The crew at Sandy Oaks just finished harvesting this year's crop by hand, which was a lot smaller than the 10 tons of olives they brought in last year.

Winokur has ordered an Italian olive oil press for next year's harvest, which should arrive in a few weeks, she said. She's built a commercial kitchen and bottling operation. And she just received a $98,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to promote her olive products.

To diversify her business, Winokur also sells handmade skin care products with olive oil, including soaps, lotions, hand cream, aroma oils and sachets. And she makes olive leaf jelly and chocolate truffles enriched with olive oil.

The Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard also sells trees, from $17 for
1-gallon pots to $120 for 15-gallon containers.“We're gradually working our way out of the red,'' Winokur said.

Photo - Saundra C. Winokur, owner of Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard in Elmendorf, inspects mature olives earlier this summer. Winokur started with 450 trees in 1998. Photo by Bob Owen (Express News)

In Texas, one of the biggest obstacles for the olive growers has been the unpredictable weather. It wreaks havoc with the crops more than anything else, Winokur said. One day it's hot, and the next it's very cold.

That didn't deter 90-year-old Paul Conly of San Antonio. The retired petroleum engineer has focused on a new kind of oil to bring back life to 20 acres of brush land in Asherton. He's hired Henry's Texas Olive Grove Management to manage it. They've planted 11,000 trees on the land, which has been in Conly's family since 1911.

“I'm trying to find some industry down there in South Texas to replace the old vegetable industry,'' Conly said.

The area, known as the winter garden, once grew all kinds of vegetables, including spinach, carrots and onions, Conly said.

“With the Depression and the drop of the water table, a lot of the farmers quit,'' he said. “In most cases, the land grew back into brush and prickly pear.”

Since the 1930s, the land hasn't been farmed, Conly said.

“I was in hopes that the olive industry would revive that area,'' he said. “I was willing to give it a whirl.”

One of the pioneers in the Texas olive oil industry, Henry planted some of the first trees in Marble Falls in 1993. But they didn't take.

“There's been a few people along the way that have gone into it and got out of it,'' Henry said. “I guess I'm either stubborn or stupid.”

Since 1995, he has steadily grown his olive orchards in Carrizo Springs. He has the state's largest producing commercial orchard with more than 40,000 trees, which he mechanically harvests. He then presses the oil on site and bottles it under the Texas Olive Ranch label. He has invested more than $1 million into his olive oil ranch, and he's beginning to see a profitable return.

“It's not rocket science; it's putting the right tree in the right area, and I think we've figured that out,'' Henry said.

Next year, Henry plans to plant another 65,000 trees. And five more commercial olive orchards are in the planning stages, Henry said.

In addition to its virgin oil, Texas Olive Ranch plans to expand into a whole line of olive-based food items such as mayonnaise, mustards and olive spreads. It's also going to diversify, Henry said. Its press also will process avocados and pecans to make those oils, he said.

The U.S. produces 1 percent of the world's olive oil but consumes more than 20 percent of worldwide production, Henry said. Almost all of the olive oil made in the U.S. comes from California, followed by Texas and Arizona. Most of the world's olive oil comes from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Spain is the world's largest producer.

Imports of olive oil have soared from 8.4 million gallons in 1982 to 70.2 million gallons in 2006, the latest figures available from the North American Olive Oil Association, based in Neptune, N.J.

The olive oil industry in Texas is still in its infancy, said Mario Morales, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“It's very much a thriving industry,” Morales said. “It's growing. There's a high demand for quality oil. We believe we have the climate and soil.”

The area from Uvalde to the southern region of the Hill Country to north of Laredo is a prime area for olive tree growing, Morales said. Overall, Texas has 250,000 olive trees planted, he said.

“We think the potential is just incredible for this specialty crop,'' Morales said. “We import way more of our olive oil than we should.”

In another five to eight years, Texas should have more than 1 million olive trees, and by then the industry should have a significant impact, Morales said.

It's a high cash crop per acre. One acre of olives can produce 6 tons of olives at maturity, Henry said. A ton of olives will make 30 gallons of oil with an efficient press; and on the commodity market today, extra virgin olive oil is fetching $50 a gallon, he said.

“We sell bottled at $90 a gallon,'' Henry said.

To plant an acre of olives, it costs anywhere from $4,000 to $6,000 depending on the equipment and irrigation variables.

“We can sell all of the oil I can make in the next 10 years,'' Henry said. “The demand for oil is increasing worldwide.''

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