A Look Inside Our Process
We want our customers to feel that they have an insider's view to The Furies and love sharing our process from the groves to your table. Recent scandals in the global olive oil market make it imperative to know where your olive oil is sourced and how it is produced. We are committed to providing you with the freshest and highest quality EVOO in the world! It is our tremendous pleasure to be on site in Greece during all steps of production, guarenteeing its authenticity and freshness.
Nestled between the Panachaiko Mountain on one side and the Ionian Sea on the other is the Achaia Region of the Peloponnese. The Furies Olive Oil is exclusively cultivated from this region, where fresh water from the mountain supplies natural irrigation and long, hot summers and mild winters offer an ideal climate. The Furies Olive Oil chooses only the best olives, which are hand-picked and milled the same day utilizing century-old methods to preserve the fruit and protect the trees. Our oil is exclusively extracted with state of the art machinery in pristine conditions. The Furies Olive Oil is the epitome of single sourced: we know the producers and maintain strict oversight of the pressing. Our oil is pressed entirely with cold extraction, assuring the superior flavor and low acidity prized among the finest olive oils.
Grove Early Harvest
The Furies is exclusively Limited Early Havest. We collect the olives when they are still small and largely green. Although they yield somewhat less oil that more mature fruit, this is when they retain the highest levels of polyphenols and antioxidants - EVOO's superpower!
Hand Collection
After laying down soft nets to catch all of the olives, we use electric rakes, which have soft paddles that vibrate and spin, to shake olives from the trees. This is also when trees are carefully pruned to encourage branches to grow out rather than up. This allows for sunlight to more uniformly reach all of the branches and keeps trees from growing too tall to collect olives. Felled branches are carefully brushed clean of olives.
Olives in a row
The net is then gathered up, and the olives are separated from the leaves and twigs by hand. This step is surprisingly time consuming and labor intensive. Special care is taken with the olives to minimize damage to the fruit. Hand collection is the first step in producing the highest quality of oil becuase gentle treatment of the olives lowers acidity.
same day milling
Olives are brought to the mill in burlap sacks the same day for milling. Same day milling is an integral part of producing the finest oil as olives do not ripen any further in bags. Olives are transportred up a conveyer that gently bounces to dislodge any remaining leaves and twigs.
Washing Stage
In the washing stage, the olives are rinsed with cold water to remove dirt and debris, and then transported to the crushing or milling stage, where they are ground into a paste. The paste is allowed to rest in the maceration wells while the oil separates from the solids. The oil is then sent through two centrifuges to spin remaining water from the oil.
Crushing the Olives
During the crushing process, the olives are macerated into a paste, which is then allowed to rest to help the oil molecules come together and facilitate separation of the oil from the pulp. The paste is then pressed or centrifuged to extract the oil.
Oil is ready for tasting
This may be the most exciting step of the process! Tasting the oil directly from the centrifuge is pure joy!
Bottling of Oil
The Furies EVOO is packaged entirely on site at the mill soon after production, locking in freshness and protecting it from all light and oxygen.
