Akhisar is a city that shines bright lately. It is a town of hardworking and friendly people. The soccer team is in the super league. Akhisar has 14 million olive trees and has the highest number of olive trees in the county. Turkey’s oldest registered olive tree is in this region, but made its name as the capital of olives due to the modern and fertile olive groves that have been planted over the last 40 years. Large national firms and local entrepreneurs have established modern olive and olive oil facilities in the region due to it being the leader in quality and quantity of olive produce in Turkey. Everyone wonders about the secret of Akhisar’s olive oil being high quality and affordable at the same time. Akhisarians work hard to use large and suitable olives as table olives and olive oil is obtained from smaller and more delicate olives that can not be considered as table olives. To produce table olives, the produce must be attractive. For this reason, olive trees are watered, fertilized and cleared of all pests during the summer. At harvest time the harvest the produce is not collected with sticks or poles, but hand picked and stored in well ventilated casks. The larger and medium olives are classified as table olives and the smaller ones are used for olive oil. In other words, the olive oil of Akhisar is low in acid and high in quality because it is obtained from olives matching table olive quality. 5 different olive varieties are grown in Akhisar. Some of them are green while others are blackened. The oils of green olives have more bitter flavor called Early Harvest, and the oils of black olives are much softer. Thanks to these different varieties, Akhisarians can produce oils for every taste.
