Olives with Indian twist a winner for SW producer

A Parkfield woman’s Indian twist on a European favourite has “taken off” at the Perth Royal Food Awards.

The Sathya Olive Company now has silver awards on every one of its products, but the show stopper is its take on kalamata olives which won a gold star and Best of Show award at the competition over the weekend.

Former engineer turned oil and olive expert, Tanuja Sanders, said her South-Indian style olives started out as a “bit of a challenge”.

“I thought ‘I’m going to do something Indian with these olives’ and so as a challenge I made them South-Indian style and everyone just started liking them,” Mrs Sanders said.

Alongside her husband, the duo planted more than 2500 olive trees on their 40ha property on advice from their Italian gardener because they “looked nice”.

Already producing a “unique” range of infused oils, Mrs Sanders had so much oil she delved into her olive grove and added the fruit to her successful range.

Mrs Sanders is in the process of publishing a cook book.