South west olive harvest

Help turn unwanted olives into delicious oil.

We need your help to bring along olives from your trees, tell us about trees that aren’t being picked and help to pick the olives for processing on the last weekend in May.

What’s the plan?

  • Register and bring freshly harvested olives to the Warrnambool Community Garden, Koroit Community Garden or Port Fairy Community House.

  • Tell us about your olive tree or one in your neighbourhood and we’ll reach out to see if they want to transform the olives into oil.

  • Don’t have a tree? Volunteer and we’ll match you with a tree to pick.

  • Olives will head to Grampians Olives Co. to be pressed.

  • We’ll collect the oil and distribute the deliciousness.

  • Awesome! You need to book in below so we know how many olives to expect.

    Pick your olives on Friday or Saturday before you bring them to the Warrnambool Community Garden, Koroit Community Garden or Port Fairy Community House on Sunday 31 May 2026 between 2-4pm.

    We’ll confirm your details and weigh your olives. If you’d like some oil in return, you’ll need to make a donation to the running costs of the project. Under 15kg is free, 15-40kg is $15, 40-60kg is $25, 60-100kg is $50.

    If you don’t want oil, we are happy to take any olives off your hands at no charge. This oil will be made available to community to help raise funds for the ongoing operation of Fruit Rescue.

    After the olives are pressed, we will email you to confirm the pick up date and time. The more olives you contribute, the more percentage of the oil you’ll get back. Bring your container along to take home your fresh olive oil.

  • Fantastic! Please fill in the details on the share a tree page so we know where to find the tree.

    If it’s not your tree, we will try our best to get in touch with the relevant person to see if they would like to join in the fun.

  • Yay! Please fill out the application form on the volunteer page then sign up for the harvest in Warrnambool or the harvest in Koroit and Port Fairy.

    We will send the details about the times and locations for the olive pick the week before.

Register for olive drop-off

We’ve wrapped our olive project for this year.
If you’re interested in participating in 2027 please fill out the below.

Our neighbourhoods are full of olive trees and they are often left unharvested. Keep an eye out in your local parks and street verges. Trees on the nature strip may be cared for by nearby residents and to avoid upset, ask before you pick the fruit.

Pick your olives no more than two days prior to drop-off so it’s fresh and doesn’t spoil. A mix of green and black is good but discard any that are damaged.

You can pick by hand, shake the tree with something underneath to catch the olives or use a ladder. To learn more about picking your olives, use CERES guide.

On drop off, we’ll weigh your olives and if you’d like to make a donation you can receive a share of the oil based on your contribution. To offset the running costs of the project, we charge nothing for less than 15kg, 15–40kg is $15, 40–60kg is $25, 60–100kg is $50. If you don’t want oil, we are happy to take any olives off your hands at no charge.

We won’t know exactly how much oil it will be because this varies between varieties and seasons. Your olives will be processed with the rest of the harvest, so the oil will be a blend of types… but it will be delicious.