Words by David Sly, Pictured: Mel Hollick
As co-chair of Fleurieu Food, Mel Hollick appreciates the value of a festival that brings crowds to more than 40 events hosted at venues across the Fleurieu Peninsula throughout the month of August.
Renewed focus and energy for the month-long Fleurieu Food Festival, now in its fifth year and with guaranteed funding to ensure a 2027 festival, has successfully shone a bright light on the quality wares of local food producers – and as proprietor of premium olive and olive oil producer Peninsula Providore, Mel is keenly aware of the need to bring people to the farm gate and become fans of local boutique food operations.
“The value of bringing people to your property is something I learned from growing up in the wine industry,” says Mel, whose parents Ian and Wendy established the renowned Hollick Estate Winery in Coonawarra during the early 1980s.
“Every wine region has a successful food and wine festival, and that’s the best marketing a boutique business can do, because by banding together to promote the region, you draw more people’s attention to everything good happening in your neighbourhood.”
After moving from Coonawarra to join partner Brook Wyett on his farm and olive grove at Currency Creek, then expanding their business by purchasing a neighbouring olive grove, Mel figured that presenting an annual al fresco long-table lunch in the olive grove was an ideal way to promote their Peninsula Providore brand.
Its immediate success provided the template for the Fleurieu Food Festival program, which commenced a year later. As an ongoing staple of the program, Peninsula Providore’s long table lunch on August 23 (featuring a four-course menu from chef and Fleurieu Food co-chair Todd Steele) was among the 2026 festival’s first sold-out events.
“We started our long-table lunch as an event within the Tasting Australia program, but we didn’t feel it provided enough traction for our region – so we gathered together more like-minded producers to present a louder Fleurieu voice.”
Held during winter because it stimulates activity during the quietest period of the year, the Fleurieu Food Festival provides intimate events where farmers and chefs can speak in detail to their event audiences about the precarious process of primary production.
“It builds brand support and sends out a powerful message – that if people want quality, then our businesses need ongoing support. Superior food comes at a cost, and we can only keep going if our businesses grow.”
Growth comes with seizing opportunities, and Mel remembers that the most ambitious leap for her and Brook came with purchasing the Nangkita Olive Grove in Tooperang during 2019 – planted about 30 years ago and previously run by former Lord Mayor of Adelaide Michael Harbison.
This property produces five olive varieties and gives Peninsula Providore access to 17,000 trees across the two groves, with enough diversity to produce three olive oil brands that each have a distinct personality – Nangkita having a smooth, mild flavour; Peninsula Providore producing robust, pungent oils; and Reserve oils produced from special parcels of olives that Mel identifies during harvesting.
“I treat the olive harvest in the same way that I would small batch winemaking,” says Mel. “With eight different olive varieties across the two groves, and by picking different sections in early- and late-harvest, we have a lot of different flavour and aroma characteristics to work with, so I process and press them all separately, and work on constructing blends later.”
Such attention to detail extends to the olive groves, which demand strenuous upkeep. “We have 30-year-old trees that haven’t enjoyed a consistent pruning regime, which means we can get unpredictable yields. It means we have to be careful as a business. It has to be sustainable growth.
“People understand all this once they come to the olive grove. It’s one of the ongoing benefits of bringing people to the property for a celebration and for them to experience the place. It’s been the trigger for word-of-mouth recommendations that have seen customers come back, along with more and more of their friends.”
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