UC Davis is hosting an event Wednesday, March 14, to kick off the 2007 line of its own, campus-produced olive oil and debut a companion wine vinegar. The launch party is also tied in with the school's focus on sustainability, a campuswide effort that encourages students, staff and faculty to promote an ecofriendly lifestyle.

The event, scheduled for 4-6 p.m. on campus at The Silo Café & Pub, is open to UC Davis affiliates and the media. UC Davis' 2007 line will be available for samplings and purchase during the launch party, which takes place a day before it is made available to the general public.

Appetizers will be offered during the event, including vegetables from the student farm, sausage from the UC Davis meat lab and Gerbera daisies from the school's Department of Environmental Horticulture -- all designed to display the campus's progressive and organic priorities. In addition, there will be tastings from a new organic beer line by Budweiser and the New Belgian Brewing Company, a Denver-based brewery that is 100 percent powered by wind energy. The wine vinegar making its debut is a product of the school's renowned Department of Viticulture and Enology.

But the headliner at the March 14 event will be the newest crop of UC Davis olive oil, a product whose ingenious conception and subsequent success has became a well-known tale at the school.

The campus is lined with more than 1,500 olive trees. Though they are scenic specimens, the fallen olives are nuisances to the school's Grounds Division. Not only were the constant cleanups costly, but their slippery, greasy residues were the cause of many bicycle accidents. After a particularly messy accident, Grounds Manager Sal Genito noticed that the scene had the overwhelming and unmistakable scent of olive oil. An inspiration of how to save money, and avoid lawsuits, struck and he enlisted an olive oil expert to help devise a plan to press and blend these olives into a marketable product.

The olive oil was a big hit, both on campus and in competitions: three of the school's four varieties took gold medal honors at the Los Angeles County fair, the largest olive oil competition in the nation, and one of them -- Gunrock -- was named Best in Class. On March 10, the UC Davis Grounds Division, which runs the picking, pressing, and bottling operation, was presented the 2006 California Parks and Recreation Society Award of Excellence in the category of Operations and Maintenance.

All proceeds from olive oil sales go to paying off the cost of the operations; the remaining cash goes to funding research on campus that helps the olive oil industry find better methods to harvest, produce and dispose of waste products.