The Team

Depending on the day, you might find Westerly Isbaih either wandering through the ALTO olive groves, cooking up a storm with her son in her own kitchen, or managing ALTO Olives sales and marketing.  Some days it’s all three.

Born in Australia, Westerly spent her formative years in South East Asia, which instilled a deep-rooted curiosity and appreciation for all things edible.  She is a qualified Cordon-Bleu chef, and worked in the kitchens of a hatted Sydney restaurant before transitioning her attentions to wholesale food distribution, firstly with Nicholas Foods and then Australia on a Plate, connecting Sydney’s chefs and retailers to great Australian farmers and food producers.

During this time she first came across some excellent Australian extra virgin olive oil, which led Westerly to pursue her love of the noble olive by focusing on the family olive business.

For 12 years Westerly has contributed as a highly regarded extra virgin olive oil and table olive judge and is a long-standing contributor to the Australian Olive Association (AOA) Consumer Awareness Education Committee.  Westerly is an olive oil educator and regularly hosts EVOO tasting and appreciation masterclasses for the foodservice industry and consumers.

Influenced by US advocate and author Michael Pollan, Westerly’s own philosophy around food is pretty basic: source the best and freshest produce available, know where it comes from and what is in it, and treat it simply.  And always use high quality, Australian extra virgin olive oil joyously, with abandon.  On everything!

Making marvellous oil for Westerly requires genius, which they say is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.  Our mill maestros are the best there are.  They have enormous experience, not of making the most oil, but of making the best oil.

To grow great olives, we need healthy trees – living organisms that require care.

We have adopted many, many trees into our family and it’s a team effort to look after them.   Neil does nutrition, Owen turns on taps, and John’s mountain bike is fully equipped with pruning gear.  It’s a lot of work, but we love it.