Olives turn a corner at Riverton

One of them is Kent Hallett who runs the Olive Oil Packaging Service at Riverton and is an Olives SA board member.

"Yields were variable, but lots of areas had really good crops and the olive oil produced out of them have just been magic," he said.

"There's been a lot of oils win gold medals this year."

He has been a familiar face at the Royal Adelaide Show in recent years, running olive oil demonstrations in the Tasting SA marquee.

Mr Hallett started growing olives at Riverton and began his packaging business 12 years ago.

"It's been a really good year for the olive industry and there's been some fantastic olive oils come out," he said.

There had been flow-on effects from the good results.

Mr Hallett said quality had been good and prices had started to edge up.

"People seem more aware of the importance of buying good quality oils, and demand has started to increase on the back of that," he said.

"A lot of people, and even some of the bigger producers, say they may well sell out of oil this season."

Competition from imported products has been one of the challenges for the industry in recent years.

But labelling is helping consumers know what to look out for to be assured of a top-quality, home-grown product.

Mr Hallett said a triangle with the words Australian Certified Extra Virgin was a symbol for code of practice.

"It means the producer has agreed to abide by the Australian Olive Association's standards," he said.

"These standards guarantee the manner in which the fruit is produced, and the way it's picked and processed.

"It also means it's been tested by an approved testing laboratory.

"Australia has some of the highest standards in the world for the classification of extra virgin olive oil.

"From a consumer's point of view, it means they are guaranteed the product really is top quality.

"From an export point of view, if they see the symbol they know the product really is Australian and really is extra virgin olive oil, and it's backed up by testing."

There are only two laboratories in Australia that do the testing - the Department of Primary Industries, Wagga Wagga, NSW, and Modern Olives, Lara, Vic.

Producers who sign up to be members of the code of practice are audited each year to make sure they are meeting standards.

This labelling and quality assurance is drawing extra interest from overseas clients.

"We have a 4000-litre order to do soon and the oil will be going to Japan," Mr Hallett said.

"It's great to see lot of smaller producers being able to get in there and win export markets.

"A lot of producers are in a position where they can start to think about exporting and they are actively pursuing and securing export orders.

"China and Japan are some of the two major markets people are looking to get into."