The founder of the company

The olive farmer from Solingen

Bastian Jordan produced on the island of Lesvos olive oil. Why, however, the Greek olive farmers to push their goods on the market, is unclear. Many of the old trees are no longer cultivated.

Bastian Jordan has made with his Oil in the cooking scene. The Oil of the family farm is a mixture. “Our olive oil, one third of the Kolovi and two-thirds Adramitiani. Very fresh, two months after the pressing, the Oil is slightly peppery in taste,” says Jordan. And you think chefs in many of the top, so Jordan’s olive oil is top class. So kitchen swear heads as Dominic Gerberding from the top of kitchen Pfaffenberg in the Bergisches Land and star chef Tim Raue from Berlin on the products. Rough was one of the First of Jordan’s Oil-for-his kitchen used. “I was just at a tasting with him and he directly buys the whole delivery that was in the car,” says Jordan proudly.

Sustainable cultivation and harvest

“Our olive trees are watered during the dry season. We use no insecticides.” Against the fruit only attractants are used to fly. They are hung in the olive trees. Jordan works with 100 small farmers. His own 1000 trees at harvest. Why not get yourself on the ideas to market their products, it is not quite clear.

Around 200 tons of Oil are produced per year. For comparison: Spain produced 1.2 million tonnes; Italy, 600,000 tons and Greece around 330,000 tonnes. In total, he has in Germany to 21 employees. From the local Solingen, he is head of sales.

Extra-Virgin Oil directly from the centrifuge

Unconventional Payment

The small farmers Bastian Jordan price pays more than the market. “So some have built a livelihood,” he explains. This is for the farmers immensely important. The crisis is still present. The Jordan feel. “At once, no money was easy to get in Greece, you could also pay nothing. Since I had to go with a bag of money to bring our suppliers for canister the money in cash, since the banks, nothing more,” Jordan says.

Subsidy fraud

It must be said that the Greek olive oil production is, to put it mildly dubious. So the country in 2014, the EU had to pay back Agricultural subsidies for olive oil and the cultivation of plants out of a total of 260 million euros. This is the European court of justice in Luxembourg decided after a long legal battle. In 2007, the EU established controllers that flowed from 2003 to 2005, many of the subsidies for olive oil is to Greece.

Bastian Jordan has prescribe Lesbos and olive oil

According to the Commission, Greece had not completed the Geographical information system (GIS) in the olive oil sector and the identification System for agricultural parcels as requested.

For this purpose, the System of the classic subsidy fraud is yet to come. As has already been established in the year 2000, the number of reported olive trees correlated with the amount of produced olive oil. Many of the trees are broke.

Olive oil is a mass product, is cheated in the lot. Oils are adulterated, inferior palm oil is mixed in. The prices are low. The price of the Jordan Oil appears at first glance to be very high. Just 17 Euro, the Liter will cost. However, the management is complicated. “The olives are only harvested by Hand and collected. They are processed without further storage. The current fatty acid content of our harvest is at 0.14 percent. The content of fatty acid says something about the quality: the fewer, the better,” explains Jordan. For two to four litres of Oil, about 20 kg of olives are needed.

Hotspot of the crisis

But Lesvos is also one of the greatest crisis regions in Europe. First, the economy hit a crisis, the refugees and the reporting of misery and violence. “Last year alone, 480,000 people came on boats to Lesvos. The island has about 80,000 inhabitants. For the people here, this is a great burden and still help you despite of their own difficulties the refugees,“ says Bastian, Jordan. Jordan estimates that tourism has plunged by around 90 percent.

At the beginning, the garage company

The idea to start a company that came about almost by accident in the 1980s in the holiday. The landscape with its many abandoned olive plantations appealed to the grandparents of Bastian Jordan. Was first produced for own consumption, then the trade with the yellow-green Oil. “We sold at the beginning out of the Garage. But we have never taken out a loan, but are always grown from the inside,” says Jordan. Focus Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Later, he wants to leave, by the way, also on Lesvos, down – now he is rooted there.