Our Story

Loam Ridges is a farm to table Olive Oil Company located in Northern California where Sevillanos olives have grown in our orchards for over 100 years. In the early 1900s, Pierre Barceloux came to the City of Orland to start a small family orchard. Barceloux Family Orchards begin with the local crop of oranges and over the years expanded to olives. For the past 100 years, our family farm has been dedicated to locally grown “California Fresh” agriculture.

All of our olives are hand picked and straight from our trees to our local mill.  All of our oil blends are 100% natural and cold filtered.  We transport the olives the day they are picked to our mill to ensure the freshest and highest quality product.  We have a passion for growing, harvesting, and milling the best olives California has to offer.

Orchard to Table

All of our olives are hand picked and straight from our trees to our local mill.  All of our oil blends are 100% natural and cold filtered.  We transport the olives the day they are picked to our mill to ensure the freshest and highest quality product.  We have a passion for growing, harvesting, and milling the best olives California has to offer.

We hope you enjoy your bottle of olive oil with your family and friends as much as we enjoy producing it!

How Our Olive Oil is Made

How Our Olive Oil is Made

The Process

  • Harvest

    Between August and November, our olive groves are ready for harvesting. We hand-pick all the olives when they reach peak ripeness, using traditional methods that have been unchanged for centuries.

  • Crushing

    Once picked, olives are swiftly transported to the mill to prevent souring. Crushing them into a paste extracts oils efficiently, a process perfected over years to maximize oil extraction by releasing oils from vacuoles within the flesh cells.

  • Malaxing

    Once crushed the olive paste enters the malaxing phase of the process which allows small oil drops to combine into larger ones. This also ensures the paste develops a uniformity and consistency over the production run. 

  • Decantering

    The olive paste that remains after malaxing has a combination of oil, water, and pomace that needs to be separated. To accomplish this Loam Ridges uses a unique blend of decentering and cold filtering.

  • Cold Filtering

    Many olive oil producers have abandoned cold extraction, but we maintain it to preserve our oil's distinctive buttery aroma and taste. Our paste is never heated above 27 degrees Celsius to retain all the natural flavors of the olives.

  • High-Speed Centrifuge

    Finally, the mixture undergoes final separation in a high-speed centrifuge spinning at 3000 rpm, effectively dividing solids, water, and oil. This precise method ensures exceptional quality olive oil.

  • Bottling

    Once the oil has met our stringent quality checks, it is individually bottled in our signature dark blue bottles to protect the product from damaging UV light.

From our Northern Californian orchards to your dinner table, now you know how we make the highest quality olive oil, we hope you will order a bottle to share with your friends and family.

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