Our Story

Grown, pressed and bottled in the Karoo. Since 2007.

It started with a planting

In 2007, on a stretch of Karoo veld outside Aberdeen in the Eastern Cape, we put the first olive trees into the ground. Four cultivars — Leccino, Frantoio, Coratina and Mission — chosen for how they'd take to this place: the clean, dry air, the fierce summers, the cold winter nights that olives secretly love.

Josh planting the first olive trees at Boutique Olive Grove, 2007

Josh at the first planting, 2007. Where it all began.

Nearly twenty years later, those rows have grown into Boutique Olive Grove: a small artisan estate in Xamdeboo where everything we sell is grown, harvested and made right here.

The way we farm

We made one promise at the first planting and have kept it ever since: no chemicals, no pesticides. Ever. Our trees drink pure borehole water drawn from beneath the veld, and the Karoo does the rest — there is very little that survives out here that isn't tough, honest and full of character. Our olives are no exception.

Every harvest is picked and cold-pressed within hours, because minutes matter when you're chasing freshness. That's why our extra virgin olive oils carry vintage names — like ASCENSION and PROSPERITY — each one a single harvest, a limited release, a record of one Karoo year.

Hand-picked olives from the 2025 harvest at Boutique Olive Grove

More than olives

A working estate produces more than one thing. Our bees work the veld and the blossoms and give us raw, unfiltered Karoo honey. Our kitchen turns estate and local fruit into small-batch jams. Our vinegars ferment slowly, the old way. Everything carries the same label promise: farm fresh, made by hand, from this place.

Clearing weeds by hand between the olive rows at Boutique Olive Grove

From the Olive Grove to your table

We remain a small, family-run estate — you will not find us in supermarkets. We sell directly: from this store, from farm stalls we trust, and to people who come looking for food that still tastes of somewhere. When you buy from Boutique Olive Grove, you are buying from the people who pruned the trees, worked the harvest and sealed the jars.

Thank you for being here. The Karoo is a long way from most places — but that's rather the point.

— Nikolas, Boutique Olive Grove, Aberdeen (Xamdeboo), Eastern Cape