Initially Pablo specialised and trained in olive oil and table olive production in Spain and Italy. He has undertaken valuable olive oil processing research funded by the Australian Government and published numerous research papers on olive processing.  Pablo has broad experience in modern olive oil extraction techniques, olive processing, oil blending and quality control.

He has extensive experience in olive oil tasting and has regularly been invited to judge at many competitions including The Australian National Olive Competition, Melbourne’s Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria Olive show, Royal Adelaide Olive Awards and the Fino Oliva Show in Brazil.

He has had wide-ranging experience in the design and development of olive oil processing facilities and in the continual improvement of their industrial efficiencies.

Pablo is respected worldwide and is a regular key speaker on olive oil and processing courses, conferences and seminars around the world including World Congress

She runs the third generation family farm www.parafieldolives.com.au in the Riverina region just outside of Wagga Wagga. Margie is a producer of premium award winning table olives and olive oil.

She has been on the Australian Olive Oil Sensory Panel at Wagga since 2010 and has been judging olive oil at the Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne state competitions and the Australian National Olive Competition since 2003.

Shane has been formally assessing olive oil since 2007. In 2009 Shane completed the Extra Virgin Olive Oil Appreciation and Assessment course. Since 2010 he has been show judging in regional and national competitions including the Australian National Olive Competition, Olives New Zealand, Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria Australian Food Awards, Sydney Fine Food Show, Canberra Olive Oil Show and the Golden Olive Show.

He is the convenor of the ‘Tastebook’ program, a sensory professional development and training initiative in appreciating, describing and understanding how to improve the quality of extra virgin olive oil and table olives. www.australianolives.com.au/article-detail/tastebook. 

He has been the head judge of the Australian National Olive competition since 2016 and he is extremely honoured to be Chairman of judges for the first Australian International Olive Awards. He sees his responsibility as an advocate for olive oils and olives and facilitator for judges and the event team.

Since then he has been elevated to a full state and national judge and has participated in the Australian National Olive Competition, Royal Adelaide Olive Awards and Fleurieu Fine Food and Olive Competition.

Michael is the general manager and olive grower of Kangaroo Island Olives, a family owned olive farm on South Australia’s pristine Kangaroo Island www.kiolives.com.au. The brand has received multiple awards from various olive oil shows around Australia.

This lead to an invitation to judge at the inaugural NZ Olive Awards in 2001. Since then, Hilary has been invited to judge in many olive oil competitions and she will be judging in the 2017 ONZ olive awards in October.

Hilary has a Bachelor of Technology (Biotechnology) from Massey University and she is an accredited IOOC Organoleptic Sensory Panel member with flavoured oil training. She is a co-owner of a small olive grove www.mt-heslington.co.nz near Nelson in the South Island of New Zealand and has been a member of the ONZ since 1996.  She has been secretary of the Nelson branch of ONZ and involved with running olive conferences and olive oil tasting workshops in the Nelson region.

Briony has been judging at state and national olive oil competitions since 2014 and has been head judge of the Fleurieu Peninsula Olive Competition.

She also runs food and olive oil sensory workshops to teach flavour descriptors under her Flavour Logic brand. Briony also enjoys harvesting and processing wild and grove olives from around McLaren Vale with friends

Tim has trained under Professor Stan Kailis and Dr Richard Gawel and has been judging olive oil and table olives at the Royal Perth Show since 1998.

Tim has been a big supporter of the burgeoning olive industry in Western Australia and is an enthusiastic consumer of olive products. He enjoys pickling his own olives for family and friends

Soumi is a food technologist with over seven years of experience in sensory analysis, technology, research and development, corporate quality assurance and intellectual property & capability analysis. She is a trained member of the Australian Olive Oil Sensory Panel at Wagga Wagga and has had extensive palate training. Soumi started her formal olive oil judging journey at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show in 2016

In 2013 Isabelle completed her Diploma for Tasting Panel Supervisor in accordance with IOOC norms held in Viterbo, Italy and presented by Wenceslao Moreda and Mauro Martelossi.

In the last two years Isabelle has been working with Stan Kailis to present refresher olive oil tasting sessions in Perth, WA.  Isabelle has been judging at numerous competitions including the Australian Olive Association National competition (since 2013), Olive Japan (since 2016), regional South West Olive Association (head judge since 2010), Perth Royal Show (since 2000 and head judge since 2015) and Sydney Royal Fine Food Show.

She harvests fruit from her small 1000 tree grove in the great southern region of Western Australia and produces her award winning Yaribelle Braes brand of extra virgin olive oil.

She has judged at numerous Australian National Olive Competitions, Sydney Royal Fine Food Show and Golden Olive Awards.

Jim and his wife Lisa own the Longridge extra virgin olive oil brand www.longridgeolives.com.au . Over the last 15 years, Jim has also been responsible for the development of over 500ha of high and super high density orchards in the Upper South East region of South Australia.

Jim has managed the Tatiara Olive Processing plant for the last 5 years where he has been responsible for processing, oil blending and oil management.  Over the last 10 years Jim has been an olive oil judge in many regional and state competitions.

She has judged at the Australian Olive Association National competition as well as the Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards and the Golden Olive Awards.

Helen provides specialised language and liaison support for the Australian olive oil industry for the Chinese market including facilitating trade partnerships, export compliance, design copy direction and product specifications.

Ali has been a member of the Australian Olive Oil Sensory Panel since 2014 and has judged at both the Australian National Olive Competition and the Northern Victorian Olive Awards.

Toshiya is the Chairman and founder of the Olive Oil Sommelier Association of Japan (OSAJ) www.oliveoil.or.jp/en/.  Since 2012 he has organised and been Director of Japan’s largest annual OLIVE Convention and Olive Oil Competition ‘OLIVE JAPAN’ (www.olivejapan.com/en).

Toshiya is the founder and Senior Professor of the Olive Oil Sommelier School of Japan which started in Tokyo in 2009. He researched and wrote over 80 hours of course curriculum and the thorough 1,200 page textbooks that cover the history of olives and olive production, olive culture, culinary uses, health benefits and sensory skills. He is a Guest Professor with the Fukuoka University, a commentator, a bestselling book author and writer of monthly magazine articles and newspapers. He regularly appears at conferences, seminars and events.

Toshiya has a Bachelor of Arts, International Christian University (ICU) Tokyo JAPAN and a Bachelor of Science, Trinity College Cambridge UK.  He is a member of Japan oil Chemists Society (JOCS) and is also a trained tea master with decades of study in the art and appreciation of tea. Toshiya speaks English, German, Latin and Japanese.

Helen was a judge at the finals of the Armonia International Olive Oil Show in Spain. She is a trained food technologist and in 2003 began training in olive oil sensory evaluation. Helen was one of the founding members of the Australian Olive Oil Sensory Panel at Wagga who then went on to undertake olive oil sommelier and olive oil sensory analysis training in Milan, Italy in 2015.

She has trained in table olive production and assessment and has judged in several table olive shows. Helen continues to be an active member of the Australian Olive Oil Sensory Panel.

This will be Debra’s eighth year judging olive oil. She has judged at the Sydney Olive Oil Show, the Australian Olive Association National Competition, New Zealand Olive Awards, the Canberra Olive Oil Show and the Golden Olive Show.

Debra works as a graphic designer and teacher but her passion for olive oil has seen her undertake regular and ongoing olive oil quality assessment

Prior to working in the restaurant industry, Nino completed a double major degree in economics and Italian. He opened his first restaurant, Caffe Contadino, in Margaret River Western Australia at the age of 25. Since then he has established landmark Sydney restaurants including Otto Ristorante Italiano, The Restaurant Pendolino and La Rosa The Strand.

He is a passionate chef, cookbook author and olive oil expert and also makes regular contributions to Australian Gourmet Traveller Wine Magazine. Nino has been judging olive oil in Australia at both the state and national competition level for more than twelve years

Bob was Chief Judge at the inaugural National Table Olive Competition in 2010. Prior to retirement he was on the inaugural panel Australian Panel which sought and obtained accreditation from the International Olive Oil Council to make judgements as to the organoleptic status of oils (Extra Virgin, Virgin, and so on).

He was a long standing member of Olives SA board and initiated the original Olives South Australia website in 2010. Bob has been a table olive judge at both the Australian National Olive Competition and the Royal Adelaide Olive Awards. He currently consults to the olive industry.

He is a very active member of Olives SA (Treasurer) and has been involved in organising olive industry field days, events and consumer awareness training events.

Michael has been a table olive judge at the Australian National Olive Competition and an olive oil judge at the Royal Hobart Show and the Royal Adelaide Olive Awards.

He produces award winning olive oil and table olives from his Nangkita grove on the Fleurieu peninsula, South Australia. www.nangkita.com.au

His family heritage originates from the Greek Island Megisti and at an early age, Stanley was introduced to the table olive by his grandmother Konstantinia. His activities focus on the quality aspects of olives and he is particularly interested in the propagation of the olive varieties Kalamata, Leccino, Manzanillo and Konservolia.

Stanley has made presentations on olive growing, olive oil and table olives at national and international forums and industry groups. He has published numerous research papers in national and international journals. He has conducted many courses and workshops in Australia on olive growing, olive oil and table olive production, flavoured oils, organoleptic evaluation of olive products and olive propagation.

In relation to these he has co- authored two olive books, ‘Producing Table Olives’ and ‘Olive Propagation Manual’ and has recently produced two major publications, ‘Olives Encyclopaedia of Applied Plant Science 2017 – Olives’ (author) and ‘Table Olives: processing, nutritional and health implications – American Oil Chemists 2017’ (co-author).he has also co-authored a research paper on loosening agents and olive oil quality. He is currently working on a review paper on Natural Table Olives with associates in Spain.

Stanley has participated in the development of the Voluntary Industry Standard for Table Olives in Australia, and is a member of the current National Table Olive Committee. He has provided extensive olive oil and table olive judges training in Western Australia and has chaired and judged at numerous olive competitions including the Perth Royal Olive Awards.

He is a member of the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology and continues to undertake olive research and run industry and training workshops.

In 2005 he established the Hunter Olive Show in the Hunter Valley, NSW and has been their chief steward since its inception. He has been on the committee of the Hunter Olive Association since 2001 and runs olive oil and table olive assessment courses and workshops for local olive producers.

Stephen is currently on the National Table Olive Committee and was a member of the Australian Olive Oil Sensory Panel (Wagga Wagga) between 2007 and 2009. Stephen is an olive grower and olive oil producer with his own Lisborne Grove label that he markets and sells at the Sydney Farmers Market.