Olive oil on a mission
The olive branch has always signalled peace but its fruit an prized oil are now also being promoted as an icon of island co-existence, ‘pulling for peace’. ANNE CANALP talks to the Cypriot entrepreneurs behind the new Colive Oil.
AN ELITE cold-pressed virgin olive oil unique to Cyprus is making its world debut, aiming to unite growers across the divide in a “Colive Oil” project to jointly mill their olives to harvest global sales. The bicommunal buffer zone start-up is the product of two young Cypriot entrepreneurs who met at university in the UK and formed a plan to educate and support olive growers with online sales as an incentive for co-existence and cooperation. Computer science graduate Hasan Siber and his accountancy graduate partner Alexandros Philippides set up their office last month at the capital’s Ledra Palace buffer zone Home for Cooperation.
Born in İstanbul to Cypriot parents, Mr Siber said: “The food ethic of ‘tree to table’ or ‘tree to mill’ is really mainstream in London and New York. I thought why not use that gourmet culture for peace?
“We have been networking with growers in Lefke, Akdeniz and Kalkanlı and in the Larnaca area and also with the authorities. We started with 800 kilos of olives from each side, although there was a bit of a panic over the first load to cross en route to the mill.
“I spent four months on the Green Line Regulations and paperwork as the olives must be in perfect condition and milled as soon as possible. They are picked by hand using combs.”
When the first North Cyprus load reached the border en route to the Limassol mill last autumn however, a hitch was encountered.
“In true Cypriot family style my 92-year-old gran saved the day when our first load of Kalkanlı olives were diverted to the capital’s checkpoint and then refused as they weren’t cleaned,” said Mr Siber.
“It took all night for us to take out all the leaves and twigs in record time. It was a close call.”
He added: “I love my people for what they do and their hard work. We need to change a mentality that shames people for being workers.”
The Colive project offers the prospect of an esoteric lifeline in a country where the olive, once an economic staple, is declining in importance.
In North Cyprus, just onethird — around 500,000 olive trees — remain from a 1974 tally of 1.5 million. But Mr Siber and Mr Philippides are looking to expand from an initial “stable” of two growers to take on up to 40 this season.
Colive Oil CEO Mr Siber chose his Cypriot friend and financial accounting graduate