The diagram illustrates the steps of producing olive oil starting from the trees and ending with the storage of the ready product.
Beginning from the top, olives are gathered from the trees into a collection vat. What follows is the removal of their leaves and their cleaning, preparing them for crushing into an olive mill. The first product – olive paste is then malaxed under 27 degrees Celsius and placed into a centrifugal press. From this stage, there are two by-products – pomace, which can be further refined at factories, and virgin oils. The virgin oils go through two more purification processes – one is going into a separation machine which extracts wastewater from the product, and the other is a decantation process to remove solids and water. In the end, the olive oil is stored in a tank for distribution and use.
As a whole the process of making olive oil is complex and requires sophisticated machinery.