The company posted a record harvest last month; annual sales have skyrocketed to $60 million; and its extra virgin olive oil was judged the best in the world this year for the third year in a row.

Cobram Estate chief executive officer Rob McGavin was thrilled to pip the competition again this year.

The New York International Olive Oil Competition judged Cobram Estate as the world's best olive oil producer during April.

“A total of 95 per cent of our production is extra virgin and that's what the world wants," Mr McGavin said.

"It's also very high quality because of the way we grow it. We had good growing conditions; it was historically our highest cropping year this year.

“Unlike wine, the higher the yield the better the quality with olives.”

Cobram Estate posted a record harvest of 13.8 million litres this year from 2.3 million trees on three groves at Cobram, Boort and Boundary Bend. 

The company's annual sales have climbed to $60 million from $2 million in 2002.

Boundary Bend is Australia's leading producer of premium extra virgin olive oil and owns the country’s two top-selling home grown olive oil brands, Cobram Estate and red island.

The Dugan family established the Cobram Estate olive grove at Cobram East in the late 1990s before they sold the brand during 2006.  

Today about 85 per cent of Cobram Estate extra virgin olive oil is sold on the domestic market with the rest going to the United States, Japan, China and New Zealand.

Mr McGavin said Cobram Estate’s export markets were growing at a rapid rate but from a slow base.

“Retail sales in Australia are our biggest business,” he said.

“We’d love to think we could be included in the next round of trade negotiations for olive oil.”

Olive oil was left off the Australian-China free trade agreement, which was signed by the Abbott government this year. Australian olive oil exporters pay a 10 per cent tariff to send product to China.

Mr McGavin said this was much less than Europe's 100 per cent import duty.

“The import duty is so large we can’t access the market,” he said.

“We don’t mind not being able to export to Spain and Italy and the olive oil-producing countries but to think we can’t access the UK. Then Europe is allowed access here and sells low-grade oil and floods our market.”

Demand for extra virgin olive oil, which is made from crushing the olives and extracting the juice instead of using solvents, makes up 60 per cent of the Australian market.

Its popularity is attributed to increased knowledge about its health benefits.