![Ceilidh and Charlie Meo are inviting guests to pick their own olives at Heathcote on Show. Picture by Darren Howe Ceilidh and Charlie Meo are inviting guests to pick their own olives at Heathcote on Show. Picture by Darren Howe](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/211799097/417faf9a-9df6-4a7b-8a4d-346fb8307b73.jpg/r0_0_5329_3550_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
He's silver, shiny all over, and crushes over 150kg of olives an hour.
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Can't guess? It is Ivan the Invincible, the pride-and-joy olive press at Apulia Grove Olives and you can meet him during this King's Birthday long weekend's Heathcote on Show.
"(Ivan) can process everything we throw at him," grove owners Charlie and Ceilidh Meo said.
The couple are inviting guests all long weekend to try their hand at olive picking, with two immersive programs for participants to "enjoy the food production experience as much as the food eating experience".
The first event, "Pick the Bucket", sees attendees pick Apulia's expansive olive groves, while farm staff process the olive oil for collection later that day.
"People are encouraged to go and enjoy their lunch at one of the surrounding wineries and pick up their own olive oil afterwards," Ms Meo said.
The second program, "Pick, Pickling, Pickled" is for anyone wanting to know the craft of fermentation, where guests can pick their own olives in the grove before learning a simple, natural fermentation method to preserve olives for eating.
![The famous Ivan the Invincible (and Ms Meo) at Apulia Grove. Picture by Darren Howe The famous Ivan the Invincible (and Ms Meo) at Apulia Grove. Picture by Darren Howe](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/211799097/d6c4e533-fdb5-42d8-b1d5-102ec8bf272b.jpg/r0_0_4406_2928_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Get connected with the food you eat
The olive trees at Apulia are abundant with branches-on-branches of ripe fruit, and Ms Meo said as much as the programs taught the ancient craft of olive oil processing, they also aimed to educate attendees on food security and sustainable approaches to food.
"There is way more (fruit) than we can pick in the next however long," she said.
"I don't want it to go to waste, I'd rather somebody came and had the experience of enjoying food production experience as much as the eating experience."
For Mr Meo, the programs and the farm's operations in general fill a gap in the a lack of connection people feel to the food they eat.
"People are very disconnected from their food at the moment," he said.
"What they want is a food product they can pick with their own hands and have a very direct connection to when it ends up on their tables."
![Ms Meo with some of the fruit ripe for the picking. Picture by Darren Howe Ms Meo with some of the fruit ripe for the picking. Picture by Darren Howe](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/211799097/0c12baf7-eb0e-41d4-baf0-84cbd902148e.jpg/r0_0_4928_3280_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The couple bought the farm in 2007, living between Melbourne and Heathcote before moving up north full time in 2018.
For Ms Meo, her commitment to the farm continued with the people met through pressing olives on Ivan the Invincible.
"Turns out most of the olive industry is small boutique producers who don't have their own press, so we've opened it up for other people," she said.
"We get to meet some pretty awesome people.
"I don't think there's anybody who's involved in food and wine that isn't a good person. It brings people together."
You can book your tickets for "Pick, Pickling, Pickled" and "Pick the Bucket" here.
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