How To Choose the Best Olives to Buy Online

Why Buy Olives Online?

Buying olives online gives you access to a far wider range of varieties, origins, flavour profiles and smaller businesses than you'd ever find on a supermarket shelf. Whether you're stocking up for a dinner party, building a cheese board, or searching for the perfect foodie gift, ordering olives online from a specialist producer means you get fresher, better-quality product — often sourced directly from growers and produced with care. 

At West Country Olives, we're passionate about bringing exceptional olives to your door, wherever you are in the UK.

Understanding Olive Varieties

When you buy olives online, the sheer variety can be dazzling. Here's a quick guide to the most popular types of olives: 

Green Pitted Olives

Green pitted Olives are known for being plump and having a firm, slight buttery texture and mild, salty, briny taste. 
We actually source our Halkidiki, Green Olives directly from a family The Stergioudis Family in Ormylia, Halkidiki the variety we use are the second largest Mammoth Green olives, their abit of a niche and we get alot of comments on the size of the Green olives. 

They are pitted in Greece using precision and state of the art machinery, before being sent over to us on pallets directly via boat then lorry! 

Kalamata Olives

Originating from Greece, Kalamata olives are deep purple, almond-shaped, and packed with a rich, briny flavour. They're brilliant on a mezze platter or tossed through a Greek salad. We pair Kalamata olives with our Green pitted olives to create our best selling flavour 'Classic Blend' 

The Kalamata olives used in our Classic Blend mix are pitted, our Kalamata olives flavour they come with the stone remaining for the full flavour of the Kalamata olive. 

Nocellara del Belice

These large, bright green Sicilian olives are buttery and mild with a satisfying crunch. A favourite for snacking and increasingly popular on cheese boards.

Our variety still have the stone remaining, which actually increases the flavour of the olive. 

We were actually lucky enough to appear on James Martin Saturday Kitchen in September 2025 and James used our Nocellara olives in his recipe, in fact he blitzed up the olives to add to the tuna dish he prepared! You can see the recipe he prepared in our blog post 

We hope appearing on James Martin a prime time popular weekend program also says something about our olives, abit of celebrity chef recognition is pretty special for a small business in Devon! 

What to Look for When Buying Olives Online

Not all olives are created equal. Here's what to consider:

• Provenance: Look for olives with a clear origin — ideally from a named region or producer. This usually signals better quality and traceability.
• Salty: Alot of olives are very salty, which is one thing that alot of people like about olives, but we think that takes away the taste of the olive so we desalinate our olives overnight in water (to reduce the salt content) before producing the following day. 
• Pitted or un pitted: Un pitted olives generally have better flavour and texture, as the stone helps preserve the flesh. Pitted olives are more convenient for cooking and snacking. 
• Freshness: Buy from a specialist who turns over stock regularly. Fresh olives have a vibrant colour and firm texture. We produce our olives in small batches, we then preserve the life while keeping the products fresh, they are vacuumed of oxygen and then gas flushed, giving the olives a longer shelf life. This also makes them an ambient product, so not required to be stored in the fridge (until opened) then they have a further 2 weeks life if kept sealed and in the fridge. 

Olives as a Gift

If you're looking to buy olives online as a gift, our gift hampers at West Country Olives are the perfect gift idea for an olive lover! We have priced our hampers so that they are all under £40, to keep them affordable and reasonably priced.

We can include a personalised note — perfect for birthdays, Christmas, or a simple thank-you.

We have created different flavoured themed hampers such as our Garlic Lovers Hamper and Spicy Hamper as well as dietary hampers, Gluten Free hamper and Vegan hampers. 

Ready to Buy the best Olives Online?

Explore our full range of premium olives, marinated selections, and gift hampers at West Country Olives. We deliver across the UK, so you can enjoy exceptional olives wherever you are.

Save 10% on first orders if you are a new customer, save on our three pack flavoured bundles Garlic and Spicy. Save when buying 10 Packs of olives. 

Don't forget if you do buy some and love them please leave us a google review, it really helps small businesses like us to be seen!