The story behind ELIDIA products

The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 BC), founding father of natural medicine, in one of his famous quotes stressed, "Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food". Hard as it might be to grasp the spirit of Hippocrates’ wisdom under today’s modern nutrition standards, these few words show the way to us in ELIDIA. Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is not merely an ingredient of exquisite quality and taste for our diet but a gift of nature with remarkable nutritional value and endless therapeutic properties. We are obliged to treat that gift with the respect it deserves.

Elidia’s product range consists exclusively of PGI, PDO extra virgin and organic extra virgin olive oils. Our olive trees belong to the cultivar of Koroneiki (Olea Europaea var. Microcarpa Alba), an indigenous Greek specie with unique features and superior organoleptic properties. The harvest period starts on the second half of October 6 months after the olive trees’ bloom in late April. For the harvesting, the olives are carefully hand-picked from the trees in order to minimize damages on the fruit and the olive tree as well. Next, they are put in fabric sacks with tiny pores so they can be transferred to the olive mill. Those pores are necessary for the olives to be able to breath during the 6-7 hours that it takes for them to reach the second stage of the production process. That is the olive mill. The key phrase for this stage is “common pressing”, a practice dictating that olives are crushed into paste and olive oil is produced within just 8 hours from harvesting. Strict devotion to that parameter is of critical importance for the quality of the oil produced, as it translates into very low acidity levels, richer flavour and maximum nutritional and antioxidant properties. Importantly, we implement exclusively a two-phase centrifuge for the final production stage where the olive oil is centrifugally separated from water and the rest of the ingredients of the olive paste. In contrast to the alternative and more productive in terms of quantity three-phase centrifuge, our two-phase procedure does not involve the adding of any extra water which inevitably washes out the phenol content of the olive oil, having a large negative effect on its quality and health protecting properties.

Following, the produced olive oil goes through a first stage chemical analysis before being stored in large stainlesss tanks, where it is kept protected from sunlight and oxygen, potential sources of oxidation (glossary). At this stage, consistent with our strict quality criteria we have taken a step further disregarding costs. We have equipped the storage tanks with nitrogen gassing kits, put in action every time we have a semi filled tank. The released nitrogen gas blankets the fresh olive oil surface, pushing the oxygen out of the tank and eliminating chances of oxidation.

As soon as a new order arrives, the required amount of olive oil is put to portable INOX tanks and transferred to our bottling facilities. There, after a detailed chemical analysis to ensure the quality of the final product, the olive oil pure as it is and with no further processing, admixing or addendum of conservatives is bottled to dark-coloured bottles to ensure minimum exposure to sunlight. The finalizing of the product comes with the labelling. Our labels have been designed strictly according to European legislation on food information, providing all necessary information regarding the composure of the olive oil and its origin. On top of that, indications of quality as well as usage and storage tips are included to safeguard the reputation of our products and optimize the experience of tasting them.  

That is the story behind every bottle of ELIDIA extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) reaching your table. Nature, man and tradition cooperate harmonically to produce one of the finest and purest extra virgin olive oils of the world. Just one detail. We have learned to trust Nature, thus we look to restrict our involvement in its work. Proper cultivating practices, careful harvesting, timely crushing of the olives and safe storing of the olive oil form our contribution to the project. The rest is all superb Cretan Mother Nature. This authenticity provides the greatest accreditation of quality for our products, boosts our confidence for what we do and generously adds to our evoo the greatest goodwill ELIDIA could ask for. Every time you unscrew a bottle of Elidia evoo (glossary) our family grows bigger. That is how we like to see it and that is the foundation on which we build our products. Elidia PGI Chanion Kritis, Elidia PDO Kolymvari Chanion Kritis and Nostos Premium Extra Virgin present themselves the way Cretan Nature prepared them for you. Enjoy!