Olives

Along with the oil mill, the Sinožić family owns 600 old olive trees Buža and Istarska bjelica, which are cultivated/preserved for generations. Along with olives Buža and Istarska bjelica, were also planted and young plantations of the variety Pendolino, Frantoio and Leccino, a total of 400 trees.

Production process

The oil mill Sinožić produces only extra virgin olive oil, which differs from the virgin and regular olive oil in that it is derived exclusively from healthy olives. The acidity (free fatty acids) of such extra virgin olive oil does not exceed 0.8%, while the percentage of regular olive oil acidity is about 2%. Extra virgin olive oil must also have a distinctive smell of olives. Olive oil in which the concentration of fatty acids is greater than 3.5% is of poor quality, and may be carcinogenic, so it is very important to know the origin of olive oil and its production process.
The process of obtaining that kind of oil from harvested olives has 4 phases:
olive-crushing – mixing – pressing – separation of olive oil.
Olive-crushing
The process in which the olives are crushed to obtain a homogeneous paste. The typical smell of olive during the production of extra virgin olive oil comes from just this stage of processing.
Mixing
The paste produced by the process of crushing, is slowly and gently mixed. The process of mixing is required to make the molecules of olive oil merge into larger droplets. This process is very important and its success depends upon the quality and quantity of oil.
Pressing
Extra virgin olive oil is got by a one time pressed olive paste, which lasts about 30 min. With that process, from 100kg of olives we get about 15-20 kg of extra virgin olive oil. Here's the reason of the quality and the cost of extra virgin olive oil. From the total mass of olives only 20%to becomes the best olive oil.
Separation of olive oil
At this stage, olive oil is separated from water and impurities, through the centrifugal filtration process.

Machines

The oil mill Sinožić is equipped with the latest Alfa Laval machinery for processing olives. A complete new line was mounted and started in 2010.