Australian company Timbercorp has said that it expects work on a new olive oil processing plant to start later this year.
The plant, which will be built at Boort in Victoria, should have a processing capacity of 50,000 tonnes of olives per year once it is fully operational. Around 717,000 olive trees have been planted over 2,100 hectares, with a total of 3,500 hectares expected to be planted.
It is hoped that the plant will be beneficial to central Victoria in terms of new jobs and business opportunities. The plant is also expected to help boost Australia’s olive oil exports from the 300 tonnes it currently exports annually, as well as raising the country’s annual gross domestic product by around A$50m (US$27.4m), reported Food Australia.