Grove History

Butte County and Oroville became the center for growing and curing olives.  In the early 1900’s Freda Ehmann and her son moved to Oroville after she perfected the curing process for table olives.  Her Oroville home built in 1911 is now a museum and national historical site.  Freda earned the title “Mother of the California Ripe Olive Industry.

MoonShadow Grove may be the oldest and largest of California’s organic olive groves.  The trees were planted in 1935 and earlier and have been producing Mission, Manzanillo and Ascalano olives primarily for use as table olives in the early years but moved to producing olive oil in the 1990s.  Butte County is still a major olive producer in the US.

In the 1980’s Toflick Sadeg bought the 150 acres of olive trees.   Raised in Turkey, among lush olive groves, Toflick longed to raise his family on a ranch.  He named it Diamond T Ranch in reference to his first name.  Hundreds of beef cattle roamed among the olive trees as well as flocks of chickens.  The family would ride horses through the grove and splash in the pool during the hot summer days.   In the mid-nineties, Toflick developed symptoms of illness that he associated with the use of pesticides.  Taking an aggressive stand, he decided to rid the grove of all chemicals.  The family strongly supported his position and Diamond T Ranch became the one of the first large scale organic ranches in California.    In 1992, the ranch was certified as Organic,. The family moved to olive oil production under the guidance of Adam and Julie Sadeg.  The Sadeg family continued to produce high quality, single varietal oils until 1999.

In 1999,Creagri Inc bought the ranch and expanded the product line.  As an early pioneer in the biotech field, Dr. Roberto Crea has developed a process for extracting the polyphenols from the olive pressing waste water. The product was enhanced by using only organic olives in the milling process. You can track Creagri progress through their website.

In 2011 the grove was purchased by Rich Mathews et al and held under the name Sadeg Ranch Organic Olives LLC.  As the brand name ( Sadeg Organic) was sold in 1998, The oil produced in the grove is being marketed as MoonShadow Grove oils.  Our goal is to produce artisan high quality estate organic olive oil, try some, you will enjoy it!