Acclaimed Producer Prepares for Fruitful Harvest in Tunisia

The olive har­vest in the north­ern Tunisian region of Zaghouan is under­way.

“We antic­i­pate a promis­ing sea­son with at least an aver­age yield and excel­lent qual­ity olives,” said Michaël Zeitoun, owner of the award-win­ning French brand Parcelle 26 by HDMP.

There’s no secret for­mula or spe­cial trick. Our holis­tic approach to olive grow­ing results in our high-qual­ity olive oil.- Michaël Zeitoun, owner, HDMP

In early October, around 90 work­ers will fan out across Zeitoun’s 50-hectare farm, reviv­ing an ancient tra­di­tion that dates back 2,500 years to the Phoenicians and Romans’ first intro­duc­tion of olives to the region.

“I’ll be there along­side our work­ers. It’s a metic­u­lous process, with olives hand­picked and metic­u­lously selected,” Zeitoun shared. ​“We have five spe­cial­ized full-time employ­ees at the farm, sup­ported by four addi­tional work­ers. Being on-site allows us to mon­i­tor the har­vest closely as it pro­gresses.”

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“My wife man­ages the brand and dis­tri­b­u­tion aspects. This is truly a fam­ily busi­ness,” he added. ​“But this wasn’t part of our orig­i­nal plan.”

The orchards were planted in 2006 and 2007 by Zeitoun’s father.

“At 86, after bat­tling a long ill­ness, my father returned to his home­land to plant olives,” Zeitoun said. ​“He came from an olive farm­ing back­ground but had left the coun­try as a young man around the time of Tunisia’s inde­pen­dence.”

Tunisia gained inde­pen­dence from French rule in 1956.

“I wasn’t ini­tially inter­ested in the project since I already had, and still have, my real estate busi­ness in France,” Zeitoun said. ​“At that time, I knew noth­ing about agri­cul­ture or olive cul­ti­va­tion. I barely even knew the loca­tion of the farm.”

Ninety workers will fan out across HDMP’s 50 hectares to harvest. (Photo: HDMP)

Zeitoun’s olive-grow­ing her­itage grew increas­ingly mean­ing­ful for him and his fam­ily as the years passed. Eventually, the orchards became a fully-fledged fam­ily busi­ness, and Zeitoun fre­quently trav­eled between Paris and Zaghouan.

“After three years of hard work, in 2018, we offi­cially estab­lished our brand and extracted olive oil for the first time,” Zeitoun said.

“My father didn’t live to see that achieve­ment; he passed away just a month before,” he added. ​“That’s when we decided to enter the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.”

In 2019, Parcelle 26 earned Gold and Silver Awards for its line of prod­ucts, which included three dis­tinct extra vir­gin olive oils made from Arbequina olives.

Since then, these extra vir­gin olive oils have won numer­ous addi­tional awards, includ­ing a Gold and two Silver Awards at the 2024 NYIOOC.

“We were for­tu­nate with Arbequina; my father planted those trees back then, and they proved to be the ideal choice for our farm,” Zeitoun said.

HDMP is working with Arbequina olives from intensive groves, though it plans to expand its offerings with conventional Koroneiki and Arbosana plantings. (Photo: HDMP)

He cred­its the qual­ity of his olive oil to a com­pre­hen­sive set of prac­tices, from hand­pick­ing and select­ing olives to man­ag­ing a ded­i­cated olive oil mill on the farm.

“There’s no secret for­mula or spe­cial trick. Our holis­tic approach to olive grow­ing results in our high-qual­ity olive oil,” he said. ​“For instance, we select trees that pro­duce the best fruits, which our spe­cial­ists then re-exam­ine dur­ing har­vest. Once the olives arrive at the mill, typ­i­cally within two to four hours after being picked, they undergo a final selec­tion.”

“Another key prac­tice is main­tain­ing low tem­per­a­tures through­out the extrac­tion process,” Zeitoun added. ​“We employ very cold extrac­tion, keep­ing tem­per­a­tures between 17 ºC and 20 ºC.”

“Additionally, Parcelle 26 stores its olive oil at a con­sis­tent 18 ºC through­out the year in nitro­gen-pres­sur­ized, oxy­gen-free steel tanks,” he con­tin­ued. ​“This ensures that our olive oil remains fresh and high-qual­ity when bot­tled for our cus­tomers. By the end of the sea­son, our extra vir­gin olive oil’s acid­ity never exceeds 0.3 per­cent, or 0.35 per­cent at the most.”

Free acid­ity is a cru­cial para­me­ter in eval­u­at­ing olive oil grades. It typ­i­cally increases over time in stored olive oil. To qual­ify as extra vir­gin, olive oil must have an acid­ity below 0.8 per­cent.

“As an olive oil mill, we don’t pur­chase olives from exter­nal sources because we can’t fully ensure how they were grown and han­dled,” Zeitoun said.

His trees are planted in fully irri­gated inten­sive (high-den­sity) groves, although water avail­abil­ity is often highly restricted.

HDMP’s olive groves are in the northern Tunisian region of Zaghouan. (Photo: HDMP)

“However, we also main­tain some tra­di­tional groves and prac­tices, blend­ing mod­ern agri­cul­tural tech­niques with a tra­di­tional vision,” Zeitoun said, ref­er­enc­ing the few hectares ded­i­cated to Arbosana and Koroneiki olive trees.

“While we don’t have organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, all of our prac­tices align with those prin­ci­ples,” he added.

Like else­where, weather fluc­tu­a­tions can sig­nif­i­cantly affect olive oil pro­duc­tion.

“Last year was par­tic­u­larly chal­leng­ing due to extreme heat and drought con­di­tions,” Zeitoun said. ​“We faced trees with olives at vary­ing stages of ripeness, from green to fully mature, which made the selec­tion process time-con­sum­ing and labor-inten­sive.”

“Climate change is the top chal­lenge for high-qual­ity pro­duc­ers,” he empha­sized.

Zeitoun also high­lighted the chal­lenge of increas­ing con­sumer aware­ness about olive oil’s sen­sory qual­i­ties and health ben­e­fits.

“We cater to two dis­tinct cus­tomer seg­ments: retail con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als. The aver­age con­sumer is just begin­ning to appre­ci­ate the value of extra vir­gin olive oil,” Zeitoun said. ​“Professional buy­ers can dis­cern qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil, and it’s grat­i­fy­ing to see them enjoy ours.”

“It’s a dif­fer­ent story with the aver­age con­sumer, who often doesn’t know what to look for in olive oil,” he added. ​“Many con­sumers are accus­tomed to stan­dard olive oils and can be puz­zled by the fla­vors and nuances of qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil.”

The com­pany plans to expand its prod­uct line by intro­duc­ing new olive oils in the com­ing years.

“We have many ideas in the pipeline, and we’re cur­rently in dis­cus­sions with some French chefs to develop addi­tional prod­ucts related to olive oil,” Zeitoun con­cluded.