Texas Olive Oil Company: What Is Actually Grown in Texas
If you are looking for a Texas olive oil company, you have arrived at an unusually interesting moment. Texas spent roughly twenty-five years building a genuine olive industry from nothing, got close to becoming the second olive-growing state in America, and then lost almost all of it in a single week in February 2021. Five years on, the trees are fruiting again and several producers are still going — but the honest answer to “is this oil from Texas?” has become more complicated than it used to be, and the most reputable companies in the state are the ones saying so out loud. This article sets out who is still here, what happened, and how to read a label.
For our own oil, see our cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil.
The Short Answer
- Texas Hill Country Olive Co., the father-and-daughter operation run by John and Cara Gambini at Dripping Springs, holds two Silver awards in the 2026 edition of the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition's official results database — for its Hojiblanca and for Sola Stella, an Arbequina. Its record across all editions since 2018 runs to sixteen awards. Southeast Texas Olive has one award in the same database, a Silver, and it dates from the 2017 edition rather than the current one.
- The state's commercial olive acreage was never large. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension's olive specialist Stephen Janak has noted that the last USDA survey put it at around 1,200 acres in 2017, and in May 2022 he estimated roughly 3,000 acres — against about 12,800 acres in California.
- Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 damaged every olive orchard in the state, and in the worst cases killed trees to the roots. Later freezes compounded it. Several consecutive harvests were effectively total failures.
- This is the point that matters for buyers: several Texas companies now openly source some or all of their olives from outside the state. Texas Hill Country Olive Co. states on its own website that its Dripping Springs trees died in the 2021 freeze and that it now gets all of its oil from orchards in South Texas and Northern California.
- That is a disclosure, not a scandal. A company that tells you plainly where the olives came from is doing something most of the global industry does not.
- Almost all Texas olive acreage is Arbequina, and essentially all of it is grown for oil rather than table olives.
Where Olives Actually Grow in Texas
Olives were first planted in Texas in the mid-1990s, and the industry that grew out of that was, by the standards of Mediterranean agriculture, tiny — but it was growing fast, and by the last agricultural census olives were the fifth-largest fruit crop in the state.
Geography did most of the deciding. AgriLife's variety trials found that the most consistent crops come from the area southwest of San Antonio, and that orchards north of U.S. Highway 90 suffer markedly more freeze damage; some coastal microclimates have also shown promise. Two very different growing regions dominate.
| South Texas — around Carrizo Springs | Hill Country — around Dripping Springs | |
|---|---|---|
| Soil | Dry sandy loam | Thin alkaline soil over broken limestone |
| Terrain | Flat, open, near the Rio Grande | Sloping, well drained, breezy |
| Freeze exposure | Lower — south and west of U.S. Highway 90 | Higher — the 2021 losses here were severe |
| Scale | Large plantings, mechanised harvest | Smaller orchards, on-site mill and tasting rooms |
| Compared to | Southern Spain | Central Italy |
Arbequina dominates the plantings. It is a small fruit with little flesh but a high oil concentration, it copes with the climate, and it suits mechanical harvesting. Producers have also planted Mission, Pendolino as a pollinator, Hojiblanca and Koroneiki among others.
February 2021: What Winter Storm Uri Did
Olive trees tolerate heat, drought and poor soil. What they do not tolerate is several consecutive days of hard freeze, and that is precisely what Uri delivered. AgriLife recorded daytime highs of around 12°F with sub-zero temperatures in the trial orchards north of U.S. Highway 90, where every tree died back to the ground. Roughly half put out new growth afterwards; many of those died later under summer stress.
The following season was worse than anyone expected. Trees that had regrown simply did not set buds, and the 2022 crop failed too — a combination, in AgriLife's assessment, of poor post-freeze rehabilitation, drought stress and an unusually mild run-up to winter that left the trees short of chill hours. Growers who had planted young orchards shortly before the storm lost almost everything.
Five years on, the picture is genuinely mixed. Trees across the state are fruiting again. But several of the industry's original figures have left it — one founding grower has gone back to cattle ranching, another has redirected his attention to grapes — and the acreage that was supposed to make Texas the country's second olive state is not there.
The Producers Still Standing, and What They Bottle
The table below is drawn from what each company publishes about itself, plus the official NYIOOC results database for the 2026 edition.
| Producer | Base | Origin | 2026 NYIOOC record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas Hill Country Olive Co. | Dripping Springs | Land bought 2008, trees planted 2009 by John and Cara Gambini | Two Silvers — Texas Hill Country Hojiblanca and Sola Stella (Arbequina) |
| Texas Olive Ranch | Carrizo Springs | 40,000-tree orchard established by Jim Henry in the mid-2000s; a much larger orchard near Victoria followed | No entry listed |
| Southeast Texas Olive | Devers | 34,000 trees planted in 2009 by Randy Brazil and Gino Venitucci | No 2026 entry — one Silver, from the 2017 edition |
| Dell's Favorite Olive Ranch | Elgin | 1,000 trees planted 2014 by Frank and Renee Majowicz | No entry listed |
| Fortissimo | Near Navasota | Founded 2020 by Mike Walzel, months before Uri | No entry listed |
Two notes on the awards, because it is easy to over-read them. The first is that producers choose which competitions to enter, and an absence from a results database means only that — an absence. It is not evidence of a lesser oil. What it does mean is that where an independent record exists, you can use it, and where it does not, you are relying on the company's own account.
The second is a trap we walked into ourselves before checking properly. The guide's search returns a producer's brands across every edition it has ever won in, not only the current one, so a search can look far more recent than it is. Several Texas Hill Country oils surface that way on the strength of awards from 2019 through 2024, and Southeast Texas Olive's single Silver dates from 2017. Read the year on the entry itself, not the search result.
One correction while we are here. It is widely written online that Texas Hill Country Olive Co. was founded by John Gambini and a brother-in-law. The company's own about page and FAQ both describe it as a father-and-daughter business founded by John and Cara Gambini in 2008. We have gone with what the company says about itself.
The Question Nobody Asks: Where Is the Oil From?
This is the part of the subject that most articles skip, and it is the only part that changes what is in your bottle.
After the freezes, the larger Texas operations had a straightforward commercial problem: retail listings, restaurant accounts and subscription customers that needed filling from orchards that were not producing. The general pattern, reported across the trade press, is that the bigger Texas farms began supplementing local supply with oil from other states or from Europe.
Texas Hill Country Olive Co. addresses it directly on its own FAQ page. It states that its thirteen-year-old Dripping Springs trees died in the 2021 freeze, that the replanted trees are still too young to use, and that it now sources all of its oil from orchards in South Texas and Northern California — while noting that it remains one of very few olive oil companies producing solely within the United States. That is an unusually candid piece of writing for a producer's own website, and it deserves to be credited rather than used against them.
The reason it matters is not patriotism. It is freshness and traceability. Oil milled a few hundred miles away and bottled within weeks is a different product from oil shipped across an ocean and blended, and the whole argument for buying regionally rests on that difference — the same argument we make in our article on fresh-pressed olive oil. If the fruit is now coming from California, you are buying a Californian oil bottled by a Texan company, which may well be excellent, and which our piece on California olive oil covers in its own right.
| What the label or website says | What it can actually mean |
|---|---|
| “Grown in Texas” | The olives themselves were grown in the state |
| “Milled in Texas” / “Pressed in Texas” | The milling happened here; the fruit may not have |
| “A Texas olive oil company” | A statement about the business, not the fruit |
| “Product of USA” | Grown and processed in the United States; state unspecified |
| No origin statement at all | Worth an email before you buy |
How to Read a Texas Olive Oil Label
Five questions, in the order they are worth asking. None of them require any expertise.
- Where were the olives grown? Not where the company is, not where the bottling happened — where the fruit grew. A good producer answers this in one sentence.
- What is the harvest date? Olive oil does not improve with keeping. A harvest date tells you far more than a best-before date two years out.
- Which variety? Arbequina is soft, buttery and mild; Koroneiki is grassy and pungent; Hojiblanca sits between them. The variety predicts the taste better than any adjective on the front label.
- Is it a single origin or a blend? Both are legitimate. A blend of Texan and Californian fruit is a perfectly good oil; you just want to know that is what it is.
- Is there an independent result behind the claim? “Award-winning” is worth checking. Competition databases are public and searchable — and they carry the year, which is the part most worth reading.
The general version of this checklist, applied to any producer anywhere, is in our guide to choosing a quality olive oil. If you are buying at volume for a restaurant or a large household, the same origin questions apply and get harder — we cover that in our piece on bulk olive oil.
The Honest Case For Buying Texas Olive Oil Anyway
Everything above could be read as a reason not to bother, and that would be the wrong conclusion.
The first argument is distance. Imported oil is frequently a year old or more by the time it reaches an American shelf, and age is the one flaw that cannot be corrected. An oil milled in Texas or California and sold within months has a real, tasteable advantage over a bottle that crossed an ocean and sat in a warehouse.
The second is that the surviving producers are, on the whole, small and unusually open. Several run their own mills, publish their varieties, offer tastings and answer the origin question when asked. That is a higher standard of disclosure than most of the global category manages, and it is the standard that ought to be rewarded.
The third is simple persistence. Growing olives in a place that occasionally drops to 12°F is a difficult way to make a living, and the people still doing it are not doing it casually. If you want to see how a regional American olive industry looks once it matures, our articles on what an olive oil company actually does and on individual growers in California and Oregon set out the same questions in a longer-established context.
Why Sidr & Stone
We are not a Texas producer and we are not going to pretend a Moroccan grove competes with one on distance to a Houston kitchen. What we do share with the better Texas companies is the belief that a buyer is entitled to a straight answer about where the fruit came from.
- Sidr & Stone's olive oil is single-estate — one family-owned grove on the plains outside Marrakech, Morocco, with no blending across origins.
- The trees are rain-fed, with no irrigation; they take what the season gives.
- They are organically grown — no synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides. We do not hold a formal organic certificate and we do not claim one.
- It is a single harvest, picked only when the season says the fruit is ready — sometimes weeks later than neighbouring farms.
- Cold-pressed within hours of harvest, which is what preserves flavour, aroma and polyphenols.
- Unfiltered extra virgin — minimally processed, and it may show a little natural sediment, which is normal.
- 100% natural: one ingredient, olive oil, nothing added.
- 500ml dark glass with a gold label, for protection against light.
- Halal certified, with 10% of profits going to charity, and fulfilment in the UK, EU and US.
We will not tell you Sidr & Stone is the best olive oil — that would be the very claim this article warns against. What we will say is that our oil comes from one named grove in one named place, pressed from one season's fruit, and that we would rather tell you that plainly than let a flag on the label do the work. If the idea of a named grove is what interests you here, we set it out properly in our article on single-estate olive oil.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the best-known Texas olive oil company?
Texas Olive Ranch at Carrizo Springs and Texas Hill Country Olive Co. at Dripping Springs are the two most widely stocked. The Dripping Springs operation has by some distance the stronger record in the published competition databases.
Is Texas olive oil actually grown in Texas?
Sometimes, and less often than it was. After the 2021 freezes several Texas companies began sourcing fruit from outside the state; Texas Hill Country Olive Co. says on its own website that it now gets all its oil from South Texas and Northern California orchards.
What happened to the Texas olive industry?
Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 brought several days of hard freeze that damaged every olive orchard in the state and killed many trees outright. Subsequent freezes and drought compounded it, and several harvests failed completely.
Which olive varieties grow best in Texas?
Arbequina accounts for most commercial acreage — small fruit, high oil content, tolerant of the climate. Mission, Pendolino, Hojiblanca and Koroneiki are also planted, with Pendolino often used as a pollinator.
Where in Texas do olives grow best?
Texas A&M AgriLife's trials point to the area southwest of San Antonio as the most consistent, with some coastal microclimates also promising. Orchards north of U.S. Highway 90 tend to suffer the worst freeze damage.
How big is the Texas olive industry compared with California?
Small. The last USDA survey put Texas at around 1,200 acres in 2017, with roughly 3,000 acres estimated by Texas A&M AgriLife in 2022, against about 12,800 acres in California.
Is Texas olive oil worth buying?
If it is fresh and you can establish where the fruit grew, yes — short supply chains are a genuine advantage over imported oil that may be a year old. Ask the origin question first.
Is olive oil a medicine?
No. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history — including being honoured in the Prophetic Sunnah — and a substantial body of modern research, particularly around polyphenols, cardiovascular health, and the Mediterranean diet pattern. It can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine, but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any olive oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.
Final Thoughts
The Texas olive story is a good reminder that agriculture is not a brand exercise. A quarter of a century of patient planting was undone in about a week, and the companies that came through it did so by being flexible about where the fruit comes from — and, in the better cases, straightforward about having done so.
That leaves the buyer with a simple job rather than a hard one. Ask where the olives grew and when they were picked. A Texas olive oil company that answers both questions clearly is worth your money whether the fruit came from Carrizo Springs or from a grove in northern California; one that answers neither is asking you to buy a flag. The test is the same test we would want applied to us.
Our own cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil — single-estate, rain-fed, unfiltered and pressed within hours of harvest — is available to pre-order. First harvest, estimated shipping from November 2026. Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Pre-Order Sidr & Stone Organic Marrakech Olive Oil — Limited First Harvest →
Disclaimer: This article describes Texas producers, acreage estimates, weather events and competition results as reported by the producers themselves, by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension and by competition organisers at the time of writing; sourcing arrangements, ranges and brand practices change, and readers should check current sources. Comparisons are made in good faith and in fair terms. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.