From hill country to olive country

You might not think livestock ear tags would be useful on an olive grove, but the coloured markers adorning the rows in Diana and Grant Crosse's 2200-tree orchard near Ōtaki have found a new life signifying different olive varieties.

"The blue is Frantoio, yellow Leccino, green Picual and purple Koroneiki. I have followed that right through in the factory as well," Diana told Country Life during a tour of the grove.

Sheep and beef farmers near Dannevirke for four decades, the couple bought the already established Kāpiti Olive Oil in 2021, looking for a lifestyle change and a venture that enabled them to learn something new.

"We probably couldn't be more different from Class 7 hill country to dead flat olive grove," Grant said.

"We're in our 60s now and it's great to be trying something different," Diana added.

The previous owners, David and Helen Walshaw, established the olive grove in 2003 on dry stony soil, two kilometres from the coast.

The move from sheep and cattle to olives has transformed the Crosses' pace of life.

"You can leave the gate open and the trees don't disappear and they don't stand on water lines," Diana said with a laugh.

"The day-to-day is not as hard as sheep and beef farming," Grant added.

"If it's wet and it's cold, I can make an executive decision and stay home.

"That took me a couple of years to get over not having to actually physically be there every day. When I came back after two days, hey, the trees were still there, they were fine," he said.

The Allflex tags were not the only thing that followed them from stockyards to olive trees.

They use soil testing, leaf sampling, and fertiliser knowledge from pastoral farming to maintain the trees' health and have introduced innovative practices such as drone spraying.

"We used helicopters and planes on the farm. So, we're like the first in the area and mainly in the olive industry to be doing [drone spraying] simply because we're used to all those other technologies," Grant said.

They enjoy meeting their customers face-to-face on market days and even delivering the oil in person to retailers, a big difference from their sheep and beef farming days.

"The lambs and the bulls went on the truck and off they went. Now we're actually - and we're going to do it this afternoon - delivering oil to the supermarket."

Intimate knowledge of the production process is something they also enjoy sharing with their customers.

"There's a story about that oil in that bottle that's come from those trees.

"And the product we've got is a top product, whereas, you know, I'm not saying sheep and beef isn't, but we were just another leg of lamb, another roast of beef."

Grant maintains the grove, using problem-solving skills developed on the farm, and the task of bottling and labelling is something they share in the small factory a few kilometres away in Ōtaki.

"These hands have done a lot of labelling and bottling," Diana said, holding a bottle under a machine to be filled with the latest harvest then meticulously sticking on the label with the Kāpiti Olive Oil brand.

"You don't talk to the label lady when she's labelling," Grant joked.

Financially, is it more rewarding than sheep and beef?

"It's allowed us to do what we want to do at the moment, which is, you know, just keep on going. We can get away when time allows. Fortunately, it's a cash-positive business when there's no overdraft or no debt in it, so that has really helped," Grant said.

"As they always say, you won't get rich, but you have a good life," Diana added.

Some things are still the same; Grant keeps the habit of weather monitoring with three weather apps and a rain gauge from his farming days.

"Like farming, we're still very dependent on the weather - what comes down from the sky or doesn't come down.

"But it's a very forgiving crop."

The Crosses' oils have won medals in New Zealand and overseas, but Grant is still chasing one thing.

"One more challenge before I retire is to have that trophy on the mantelpiece, and it's a nice trophy, and it says Extra Virgin Olive Oil Best in New Zealand.

"Then I will - I've got to be careful - I'll seriously consider retiring."

"I'll take you up on that." Diana said.