The Olive Farm on Salt Spring Island, B.C., yielded its first harvest in 2016.Supplied
The survival of Canada’s only olive farm depends on finding a buyer willing to carry on the work of a B.C. couple who were determined to bring quality homegrown olive oil to the North American market.
Sheri and George Braun were not farmers – and were in their 50s – when they decided to start an olive mill. Inspired by a trip to Spain, they spent four years researching a suitable place to grow olives in Canada. On Salt Spring Island, they found a microclimate that most closely resembled the Mediterranean. Sheri worked in education and counselling and George worked in construction, so they knew the learning curve would be steep. But their kids were grown and the couple wanted to spend their remaining years doing something entrepreneurial for their family, rather than travelling. Initially, they thought their dream of an olive farm would take them to Europe, but then they decided to make a go of it in Canada.
The Calgary couple made their first attempt at farming by buying a cherry orchard in Kelowna, B.C., which they planned to transform into an olive grove. But after a couple of years, they knew the cold winters wouldn’t work. They visited an olive farm in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, which has a similar climate to the Gulf Islands, with mild winters and dry summers. The Brauns figured they could bring olives even further north. By 2010, they’d purchased 74 acres in Fulford Valley on Salt Spring, two parcels of land that included a vineyard and a two-bedroom villa built to look like it belonged in Greece.
Sheri Braun hopes whoever buys the farm will carry on its legacy.Supplied
The couple faced their share of naysayers, including olive growers who believed Canada was too far north to grow their crop and refused to sell trees to the couple.
“We couldn’t get anybody that would sell to us at first,” said Ms. Braun. “My husband phoned a lot of people and they just kind of laughed and said, ‘Why would we sell to you? It’s not going to work. You can’t grow olives in Canada.’ It happened quite a few times, not just once,” she said.
A California grower named Umberto gave them their break and sold them some hearty Italian varieties, about 1,000 saplings to start, said Ms. Braun. Because of strict border control rules around pest control and biosecurity, they brought soilless saplings into the country. The couple had to quickly build a greenhouse to grow the fragile transplants for the first couple of years. To prepare the farm for the trees, they removed most of the old grape vines and grew a crop of hay, to replenish the soil’s nutrients.
By 2016 – six years after they’d purchased the acreage – they yielded their first harvest of olives. After sending samples to sommeliers, they found out that their extra virgin olive oil was of a high standard. The mill produced 650 quarter-litre bottles of olive oil that first year, which sold out right away. Michelin-starred chefs became their biggest customers. They didn’t even have enough to sell at the popular market in Ganges on Salt Spring Island. The Olive Farm, as it is properly known, sells its oil for $125 a bottle – not that the Brauns got rich off the project, which involved their kids and grandkids. Ms. Braun said her son flew from Ottawa every year to help with the harvest, and her grandkids were “weaned on the farm,” picking the fruit when they were small.
“People were phoning and writing constantly,” said Ms. Braun. “We had long lists of people waiting.
“We thought we’d be gentlemen farmers, but it turned out that it pretty much took over our lives. It became everything. … We loved it.”
The two-bedroom villa is built to look like it belonged in Greece.Supplied
George died last September, so Ms. Braun has decided to sell both properties at online auction on Aug. 12. Their passion project just doesn’t make sense without her husband of nearly 53 years, she said.
“The joy was doing it together,” said Ms. Braun. “We celebrated every little drop of oil, every sale, every new plant, every regrowth, every tree that died and came back to life. This is not something that I will get pleasure out of alone.
“My husband was a doer. He always said, I mean, it sounds trite, but when he said it, he meant it: ‘Don’t let fear hold you back. You can’t be 100 per cent sure of anything. And so if you’re going to be risk averse every time something comes along, then you’ll never do anything.’ So he was very much a risk taker. And this was just one of the things he did in life that was risk taking.”
She is selling the farm through an online auction that specializes in agricultural property called CLH, based in Alberta, and run by lawyers. Director of sales Tyler Ruttan said he expects the property to attract a buyer with the same vision that the Brauns had, a passion for agriculture and food. He expects the two parcels of land, 38 and 36 acres, to stay together, but they could be sold separately. The property includes a wooded area with a creek. Bids are starting at $2.19-million per property.
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Boutique farm buyers aren’t affected by the same market cycles as residential buyers, even though the sale involves a house, he said. And properties such as The Olive Farm don’t come up often. CLH recently sold the Jura Ranch, an 81,073-acre cattle ranch near Princeton, B.C., for $5.3-million.
“It’s very different than, say, selling a house in Vancouver or Kelowna,” said Mr. Ruttan. “It’s a different audience altogether.
“We don’t have a crystal ball, but we do know the interest has been great. We’re seeing interest from many different areas in North America,” he said, adding that he would also like to see a buyer carry on the Brauns’ legacy.
“If the purchaser goes a different direction, this rare commercial Canadian olive farm will have its last chapter.”
Ms. Braun hopes that the next buyers will carry on the legacy, especially now that they’ve done all the hard work of building the infrastructure and growing the trees. Ms. Braun intends to maintain a presence on Salt Spring – she’s available to act as a consultant to the new owners.
“If we’re lucky enough to get somebody who wants to continue the dream I’m certainly going to be available to them,” she said.