Making the EVOO connection

When Jared Bettio stopped the press in the middle of Rio Vista’s mammoth 2021 harvest, he no doubt wondered if the idea had been a crazy one. But as 14 Adelaide chefs had a light-bulb moment about fresh, local EVOO, he knew it was worth it.

The setting was Rio Vista’s Mypolonga processing plant and that idea was to bridge the gap between the EVOO that chefs are using in the kitchen and the labour of love which is creating it. They’d do that by taking the chefs through the creation process, from tree to fresh EVOO.

Making the connection

“We wanted the chefs to come down and connect with the process; to actually get the context of the fruit coming off the tree, getting cleaned, processed, malaxed and finally see the oil coming out,” Rio Vista Marketing Manager Sarah Asciutto said.

“When people are there and they see all the processes involved, how complex it is and how many elements there are to consider, all of a sudden they realise there’s a real art to it. And they also realise that it’s not a cheap product to make.

“One of the most difficult things in dealing with chefs is that they typically want to drive down the price, but when they see it’s not just a quick or easy process, that it’s a labour of love and a craft, I think that makes a difference to how they think about its value.”

Promoting regionality

The chefs, from a range of Adelaide restaurants, then joined the Rio Vista harvest team for a lunch featuring local produce from around the area.

“A secondary aim of the day was to educate them about the regionality of EVOO and introduce them to more of the amazing food produced in our region – like local buffalo mozzarella and goats cheese,” Ascuitto said.

“Not many people associate the Murraylands with gourmet food but there’s actually a lot of amazing produce made here, it’s just not on the average food map. So for us it was also an opportunity to start opening chefs’ eyes to another fabulous local food region which is right on their doorstep.

“We’re now hoping to organise a second day with chefs from Sydney and Melbourne, to take that education and introduction process out even further afield.”

Taking it to the screen

The Rio Vista team then followed up with a harvest season segment on Adelady, a lifestyle TV program promoting all things South Australian. Part of an SA produce episode, the segment looked at both the production of EVOO and its use in the kitchen.

“It was about ‘Everyone knows what olive oil is but do you know how it’s made?’,” Asciutto said.

“They filmed Jared processing, and talked to him about all the processes and oils, giving viewers a bit of a ‘behind the scenes’ look at olive oil.

“Then they interviewed me about cooking with olive oil, which was a great opportunity to work on changing people’s perceptions about cooking with olive oil.

“We know there are a lot of people – including old Italians – still using whatever’s on special, so we were trying to get the message across that when the base of a dish is a really good olive oil, that’s going to change the whole flavour of it.

“And we backed it up at the end with a spread of food - Bolognese, caprese, chocolate brownies and mousse – all made with olive oil.

“Again, it was a bit crazy doing it in the middle of harvesting and processing but it was a great opportunity to improve the image of olive oil. For people to be able to see for themselves how it’s made, and how special a product it is, can only do good things for the industry.”