Myrolion

How did the Greek crisis shape a new generation of olive farmers?

As a child, I remember both of my parents working tirelessly on their IT business. I would spend most of my time trailing behind my father and his clients or following my mother to the office; it was their only assurance that I would be taken care of.

In 2010, Greece started experiencing its notorious crisis. Even my parents’ hard work was not enough to keep my family standing. I soon got the first taste of austerity—a light word enveloping a cruel concept.

The Transition

The Greek market collapsed, and so did my parents’ IT business. Throughout the next couple of years, I was trying to be a teenager, but my family’s struggle was apparent.

One day, while sat down to concoct a way out, my grandfather’s words echoed in my mother’s mind:

“Our olive oil’s aroma reminds me of myrrh. It’s Myrolion!”

Although he passed away just one day before I was born, this person influenced my life directly. Trusting my grandfather’s words, we decided to experiment with his then-forgotten olive trees. By the end of 2012, we had managed to tame some of his abandoned olive orchards.

A Fresh Start

My parents and I started cultivating my grandfather’s land. It was so different from the city life we were used to—refreshing. It wasn’t long before we saw the first fruits of the process.

Since we had zero knowledge or experience, we were imitating the surrounding farmers’ conventions. However, we quickly realized that we had to do more if we wanted to become sustainable.

Understanding the concepts behind “extra virgin” and “organic” was the first step. Upon doing so, we adopted a few basic yet not-so-common practices and sent our first sample to the lab for testing.

Becoming Olive Oil Experts

A surprise awaited us when we received the results. Not only was our family’s olive oil both organic and extra virgin, but it bore another important and rare feature.
Myrolion was a polyphenol rich olive oil. With a concentration of polyphenols that exceeded average olive oils by over 100%, our olive oil was proven to provide certified health benefits against oxidative stress.

Why did that happen? Which factors affect phenolic content? Such questions encouraged my dive into the fascinating worlds of soil biology, biochemistry, physics, and nutrition. I have not stopped acquiring and implementing knowledge since.

From that point on, our family has been using our exquisite olive oil to facilitate deep bonds of friendship with other families in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA. We love working with small, family-run delicatessens to help them deliver the best olive oil products to their customers. We also love nurturing families directly by sharing our olive oil and offering them knowledge on how to get the most out of the Mediterranean diet.

For five consecutive years, our family’s olive oil has received awards for its health-protecting properties. Still, there is nothing as rewarding as making friends worldwide through the results of your hard labor.

The Future

Myrolion’s future is based on three pillars: exquisite quality, cultural exchange, and Earth-healing practices. With each passing day, we grow by educating ourselves to perfect our products and services—to keep them pure, healthy, natural, and transparent in a profit-oriented market that so often leads to fraud and opportunism.

Our friends and their families will soon be able to visit our olive orchards and our new olive press. They will be able to harvest olives themselves, swim at nearby beaches, and pick the delectable herbs that grow beneath our trees.

Finally, we aspire to create the first carbon-negative-certified olive oil. We reinvest a significant portion of our revenue so our family may achieve that goal.

Additionally, we work with various research institutions to develop an olive farming paradigm that will nurture biodiversity, evolving practices that embrace local flora and fauna as an asset instead of an obstacle.

Explore the New Olive Farming Model Yourself

Our family’s ongoing story is one of many. Numerous families have found a whole new world among nature, perhaps thanks to the Greek crisis.

A new agricultural paradigm is being born. And now more than ever, consumers have the option to change the world with their decisions. Welcome to our family. Come share our exquisite olive oil.