All of The English Olive Co oil comes from our own olive grove in Lincolnshire.  The Hoyles family have been farming in The Fens for over 250 years, and planted their first olive grove in 2024.  It is from these olive trees on the family farm that our olives are harvested, pressed and the oil bottled.  See the ‘Olives & Us’ tab for more information.

All of our olive oil is fully traceable to the row of trees it was grown on in our olive grove.  Each variety is harvested separately, with the varieties kept separated or blended together for taste.  There is nothing added to the process, just cold pressed olives to give great tasting olive oil.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil, EVOO, is defined as having good flavour and odour by the International Olive Council.  To be classed as ‘extra virgin’, an olive oil must have a medium of flaws of zero and a median of fruitiness of more than zero.  EVOO has the lowest fatty acid concentration of any olive oil, with oleic acid levels of less than 0.8 grams per 100 grams.  In addition to the fatty acid level, EVOO must have a peroxide oxygen per kilogram of less than or equal to 20, demonstrating the lack of oxidation and the greater the freshness from harvest to milling and pressing time.

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) has the lowest level of fatty acid concentration of any olive oils and also has to have the lowest levels of oxidation (see FAQ ‘what does extra virgin actually mean?’).  In addition to these two certified qualities, then EVOO’s favourable qualities include aroma, fruitiness, bitterness, pungency.  Trained tasting panels measure the intensity of these characteristics.

The olives are mechanically harvested by combs from the trees, and are then transported to the mill as soon as possible.  The olives are washed and rinsed at the mill, and then ground to a paste.  The paste is crushed and then gently stirred and oil droplets form.  The stirred paste is then transferred to a centrifuge which separates the oil from the water and pomice (solid waste).  The oil is then filtered and stored in stainless steel tanks ready for bottling.

Yes!  Olive oil and olives are the original superfood!  They are rich in Vitamin E, and also contain Vitamin A, Copper, Calcium and Iron.  Olives are antioxidants and anti-inflammatory, and are used to help reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and bone disease, and improve skin health and your immune system.  See ‘Olives & Us’ tab for more information.

Tours to the olive grove and your opportunity to taste the different variety olive oils will hopefully be starting following our anticipated first harvest in autumn 2026.  We will let people know via our social media channels as soon as we know when tours and tastings will be available.

We are hoping for our first small olive harvest to be in autumn 2026, allowing for a little bit of luck from the English weather.  We will then process the olives and bottle the oil.  Purchases will be able to be made from this website and also our pop-up shop.  We will let people know via our social media channels as soon as we have our first bottles available for sale.

Olive oil is the most consumed oil in the world, with the Spanish and Greeks consuming over 14 L of olive oil per person per year.  In the UK olive oil consumption is rising, but we still only consume less than 1L of olive oil per person per year!  It is suggested that 1 to 2 tablespoons (15-30ml) of olive oil per day will help you achieve the many health benefits.

The English Olive Co grove is in South Lincolnshire on the naturally fertile reclaimed silt soils by The Wash.  Being close to the coast, the sea helps temper the weather extremes; keeping the summer slightly cooler and the winter slightly warmer.  Please see the ‘Contact Us’ tab for more location details.

Olive trees have survived the UK climate for many years, but there were no commercial olive groves for olive oil production until The English Olive Co planted its first grove in spring 2024.  Olive tree varieties have been chosen with frost tolerance and varying flowering times from areas around Europe to try and give the trees the best chance of flowering and then producing olives for harvest.  With a little bit of luck from the weather we hope that some to all varieties planted in the grove will produce olives!

An olive tree will begin producing fruit at about three years old.  The tree generally flowers in May/June and the flowers then turn into fruit, and the fruit grows through the summer months.  The olives are then harvested in the autumn.  It can take eight to ten years for an olive tree to reach its full fruiting potential, but once at its potential, if the tree is well managed and well looked after they can fruit for hundreds of years.

Green olives and black olives are the same fruit; black olives are simply left on the tree to mature for longer and change to a darker purple-black colour.  Green olives, being less ripe, are generally more bitter.  Black olives, being riper, are generally fruitier.  Different olive tree varieties have different taste characteristics and health properties.

Our olive trees are grown in long lines to maximise light interception and enable mechanical harvesting of the olives.  The trees are planted facing north-south, so that the sun can rise above them with the least amount of shade being made.  The optimum spacing of olive trees for olive oil production in the UK is not known, so we have planted some at differing spacing to see how they will perform.

We do not sell olive trees, but please see the relevant area of our website for the olive oil and associated gifts for the home that we do sell.