Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my blog. My name is Shawn Addison and I am the owner of The Olive Oil Source. I decided it would be a good idea to share some of what I do on a day to day basis. I want to show our customers the importance we place on quality in our business and why we are qualified to make the decisions we do.

I don't want to bore you with an entire resume so here are some of the highlights of my background as they pertain to this business. Going way, way back, I have a masters from The Food Research Institute at Stanford University. I have been in the olive oil business since 1998 and have planted and managed orchards in France and the U.S. Additionally, my wife and I have owned an olive mill since 2003 and have worked in the mill, not just owned it. I've dealt first hand with fun challenges like trying to mill over-ripe Mission fruit too soon after rain, or trying to get a reasonable yield out of green Ascolano fruit.

Additionally, I have been consulting on orchards, mill installations, and olive oil start-ups and established producers for over 10 years. I've worked with clients in much of the U.S. as well as in Mexico, Australia, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Pakistan, Japan, and even Bhutan. I've seen a lot of sick trees, gorgeous orchards, poor mill layouts, beautiful milling facilities and tasted everything from horrible oil you want to spit out to some of the most divine delicate oil you can imagine (like Chateau d'Estoublon's single varietal Salonenque). This is my business, I love it and I want to share it with our customers.

I encourage you to come back and check my posts or to subscribe to the RSS feed in the right column.