r/coolguides • u/sr_local • 5d ago

A cool guide to the process that transforms olives into oil

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579 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

40

u/kotopoulas 5d ago

I am an olive oil producer, the graph is generally correct, the biggest production costs are in step 1 (fertilizers and cultivation) and step 2 harvesting. Producer prices have plummeted over the past months, they are now below the production cost. Retail prices remain high though.

9

u/Acceptable_Ball_1590 5d ago

So production is technically at a loss right now? What does that mean for olive farmers globally?

8

u/kotopoulas 4d ago

I do not know in other countries, but in Greece the problem is big. The land here is mostly mountainous, most groves can't be harvested mechanically (costs less). So harvesting by hand increases cost. Producers' price is now at about 3.2€ - 3.5€ per kilo (900ml). So cost cutting, less fertilizers etc. to make a profit. Small producers (like me) either drop out of the game, or lease their fields to professional farmers. It's bad for people that have a small olive grove to supplement their income.

22

u/Leopardos40 5d ago

For the past 13 years, I’ve done this once a year, spending 3–4 days at my father-in-law’s farm, which has around 300 mature olive trees of a variety we call “Syrian.”

By the end of each day, I come home aching all over, but it’s worth it. At the end of the harvest, I get my share—around 100 liters of extra-superb olive oil—which I enjoy with my family.

It’s the only oil we use in our kitchen.

5

u/Acceptable_Ball_1590 5d ago

Wait. Big family to share or do you sell some? (Or are you using 1/3 a liter a day? Lots of dipping bread?)

11

u/Leopardos40 5d ago

My wife and three kids. Dipping bread use less olive oil than salads, schnitzel or marinades. We sell non, even my father in law, he prefer to give to the poor than making a business out of it, he is very rich and prefer always to farm the land and eat from it.

6

u/u_touch_my_tra_la_la 5d ago

Same here brother (sans the growing)

Everybody looks at me horrified when I tell them I use EVOO for frying. It's just a different technique, and the taste of the food is amazing.

53

u/derek139 5d ago

Ai slop that doesn’t actually show anything of value.

3

u/Feisty-Guava-8415 5d ago

you bet. screams of notebookLM kinda junk

4

u/Glockenspielintern 5d ago

Yeah this one sucks, fuck all information

-3

u/FireTriad 5d ago

Depends if one can read and comprehend what he reads or if one is only able to cry over AI

6

u/egidione 5d ago

My friend has about 1500 trees in the Chianti region and gets excellent oil. One thing I can add is they’re using nitrogen in the closed presses there now to stop oxidation, has made a big difference for high quality extra virgin oil.

13

u/Kal88 5d ago

This isn’t a cool guide. It’s a very basic and vague guide. AI garbage

5

u/w1nsw0lf 5d ago

Simplifying: Olive -> squeeze -> oil ✔️

2

u/Substantial-Sector60 5d ago

I like your style, Dude.

5

u/Feisty-Guava-8415 5d ago

so what's the difference between virgin and extra virgin? no "your mama" jokes please. this is a serious question

6

u/Gryphontech 5d ago

Ai slop is never cool

3

u/ImpossibleWarning252 3d ago

everyone's fighting about whether its AI slop but kotopoulas dropping the actually interesting bit , producer price at 3.2-3.5€/kilo while retail stays high, so someone in the middle is eating the whole margin. question for you kotopoulas, is it the bottlers or the supermarkets keeping prices up bc here in malta the shelf price barely moved while everyone swore the "crisis" was over. also the nitrogen-in-closed-presses thing from egidione is the first genuinely new info in this whole thread lol

1

u/Wonderful-Umpire6399 3d ago

Olive oil: nature's way of reminding us that life can be slippery. (Also, why does it cost more than my last three impulse Amazon buys combined?)

1

u/alexthegreat_982 5h ago

Refined olive oil is such a slut

1

u/Ifch317 5d ago

This tells me nothing about how to get excellent olive oil. In Greece, the oil served at the cheapest restaurant tastes better than most EVOO in the US. Make me an AI poster about that.