Cobram Estate chief executive leaving for California

The olive oil company’s growing US expansion will see one of its joint chief executives relocate across the Pacific, amid pleasing 2025 harvest results.

A leader in Australia’s olive oil industry is moving across the Pacific to further his company’s US expansion.

In a release to the ASX on Monday, Cobram Estate Olives announced that joint-chief executive Leandro Ravetti would be relocating to California as of September this year, in the hope it will better position the company to take advantage of emerging opportunities.

Since Cobram first entered into the US market in 2014 with the purchase of a 3.64ha property at Woodland, California, it had grown its Californian olive grove portfolio to 916ha, before announcing in December it had purchased another 1534ha to support 970ha of new plantings, plus a 95ha mature olive grove.

Chair Rob McGavin said at the time there was “the most incredible opportunity in the USA”, where the olive oil market is eight times bigger than that of Australia’s.

Back on home soil, Cobram last week completed its 2025 Australian harvest, picking 80,000 tonnes of olives, resulting in 14.2 million litres of olive oil production, up from 10.1 million in 2024.

This was also up from the most previous ‘on-year’ - due to the biennial cycle of olive yields -of 2023, of 12.9 million litres.

While 2026 is considered an ‘off-year’, the company expects the 2026 crop to be only moderately lower than 2025, with the trees in good condition, combined with its maturing grove age profile.

Cobram also announced it had acquired Mildura-based farming machinery business Leda Ag, for an initial payment of approximately $3m, with an additional $2m to be paid over the next four years.

With a partnership of over 20 years already, the transaction allows Cobram to bring in house specialised skills to accelerate the development of more efficient olive harvesters, with all Leda Ag employees joining the company.

The company expects its underlying EBITDA to be approximately $115m for FY2025, with an anticipated fully franked dividend of 4.5 cents per share in late November 2025.

The company’s full year results will be released on August 22.