Meet an Award-Winning Producer Promoting Greek Oils in Berlin

Butter has long been the edi­ble fat of choice in Germany, with the European Union’s most pop­u­lous coun­try and largest econ­omy among global but­ter pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion lead­ers.

However, olive oil con­sump­tion and cul­ture have slowly gained a foothold in Germany. According to the International Olive Council, Germans con­sumed 76,900 tons of olive oil in the 2021/22 crop year, a 25 per­cent increase com­pared to one decade ago and a sev­en­fold increase com­pared to 30 years ago.

While plenty of olive oil in Germany is pur­chased in super­mar­kets, Amadeus Tzamouranis is work­ing to cre­ate a more inti­mate con­nec­tion between Germans and extra vir­gin olive oil.

The chief exec­u­tive of Thalassa (the Greek word for ​‘the sea’), which pro­duces the award-win­ning OEL brands, was born and raised in Berlin but spent his sum­mers on the fam­i­ly’s olive farm in Kalamata on the Peloponnese penin­sula.

“I’ve always had a deep con­nec­tion to Greece,” he told Olive Oil Times. ​“Although I knew olive oil, I never had the intense expe­ri­ence of being in the field, har­vest­ing the olives, bring­ing them to the mill and see­ing how the oil is pro­duced.”

While olive oil was a ubiq­ui­tous part of his child­hood, Tzamouranis said his first inti­mate expe­ri­ence came after get­ting a call from his uncle in 2015 ask­ing him to come and help with the har­vest.

Tzamouranis agreed and bor­rowed a friend’s van to drive from Berlin to south­ern Italy before cross­ing to the Peloponnese on a 24-hour-long ferry.

His orig­i­nal plan was to bring some paint­ings to his father, an artist host­ing an exhi­bi­tion, and med­i­cine that was unavail­able in the com­mu­nity. Tzamouranis also pur­chased some of his uncle’s olive oil to bring back to Germany and share with friends and fam­ily.

“I had this van full of paint­ings, med­i­cine and all these things, and I did­n’t have the idea to make a busi­ness out of it,” he said. ​“My idea was just to have a good time.”

However, this changed when he brought the freshly-har­vested unfil­tered extra vir­gin olive oil back to Germany.

“I gave some to my friends, and they were amazed,” he said. ​“When it comes fresh, like two weeks old, most peo­ple in Germany don’t know this kind of taste because nor­mally olive oil is stored and then fil­tered before being bot­tled.”

Soon one of his friends, who later became his busi­ness part­ner, rec­om­mended that he lever­age his con­tacts in the German food indus­try – Tzamouranis had spent years work­ing as a cook in Berlin restau­rants – and start a busi­ness import­ing his uncle’s oil to fill the void of fresh, organic extra vir­gin olive oil.

“In Germany, there are many olive oils, but the prob­lem is you don’t know who is behind the brand. There’s no con­nec­tion to the pro­ducer,” he said. ​“We decided to make a brand from Berlin – OEL Berlin. We wanted to build a bridge directly from Greece to Germany.”

There have always been strong links between the two coun­tries, with 2021 cen­sus data indi­cat­ing that more than 450,000 Greeks live in Germany, the ninth-largest for­eign national group in the coun­try.

A sep­a­rate 2019 report from Insete Intelligence found that Germans make up the largest share of tourists in Greece, with more than four mil­lion vis­it­ing each year, nearly 13 per­cent of total tourists, gen­er­at­ing an aver­age rev­enue of almost €3 mil­lion per annum.

“A lot of peo­ple here in Germany have a pas­sion in gen­eral for Greece,” Tzamouranis said.

Despite these close cul­tural con­nec­tions, he added that many Germany believed the old cliché that high-qual­ity olive oil only comes from Italy and set out to change this.

At first, he imported the olive oil part-time, work­ing up to three other jobs in par­al­lel. After two years of this, he saved up enough to buy a small grove in Greece and returned to Kalamata to mas­ter the art of olive oil pro­duc­tion.

“I wanted to learn every­thing,” he said. ​“I wanted to be there and not just be some­one buy­ing olive oil and reselling it.”

However, he soon found that he could not pro­duce enough of his own olive oil to meet demand, so he went to Ilias Stavropoulos, who had long trans­formed his olives, and part­nered with the cer­ti­fied organic miller of 30 years.

Now, Thalassa, the recently re-branded name of OEL, pro­duces 100,000 liters of organic extra vir­gin olive oil each year, along with a range of other olive-based prod­ucts.

“We are try­ing to give peo­ple an under­stand­ing of what needs to be done to pro­duce a good olive oil,” Tzamouranis said, adding that many super­mar­ket chains sell olive oil for €4 to €5, prices at which he could never afford to sell his oils.

Tzamouranis believes that extra vir­gin olive oil, the way he pro­duces it, is a bou­tique and arti­sanal prod­uct that needs to be mar­keted and sold as such. To this end, he works closely with Berlin’s organic super­mar­kets and spe­cialty food shops.

Working within the con­text of a retailer that already attracts a more sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of health-con­scious clients has helped Tzamouranis to edu­cate con­sumers about the health ben­e­fits of olive oil and how to use it in the kitchen.

“There are many cus­tomers who started using olive oil just for sal­ads,” he said. ​“In Germany, there’s a dif­fer­ent cul­ture of how to use olive oil.”

As in many other non-olive-oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries, Tzamouranis said myths about fry­ing with olive oil abound, as do mis­con­cep­tions about cook­ing with olive oil. However, he added that this is slowly chang­ing.

“I’m try­ing to find ways to inspire peo­ple on how to use olive oil with recipes,” he said. ​“It’s chang­ing a bit. People are more aware that good olive oil needs to cost at least €15.”

The real­iza­tion that pro­duc­ing qual­ity prod­ucts requires sub­stan­tial invest­ment has not come a moment too soon.

While Tzamouranis does not expect to begin har­vest­ing until November, sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions and infla­tion have cre­ated a chal­leng­ing busi­ness envi­ron­ment.

He said the price of the tins in which he stores and sells his olive oil had ​“exploded,” and the costs of trans­porta­tion and ship­ping from Greece to Germany had also risen sig­nif­i­cantly.

Additionally, his usual tin sup­pli­ers asked him to pur­chase a min­i­mum of 100,000 units at a time, far more than he requires each har­vest.

“We have higher costs, but we can’t pass these costs to the con­sumer because if we do that, who will buy our olive oil,” he said. ​“This is the prob­lem we have, so we some­how need to find ways to deal with that.”

The com­pany had been work­ing on find­ing cre­ative ways to add value to the extra vir­gin olive oil before the cur­rent macro­eco­nomic dif­fi­cul­ties emerged.

One way the com­pany does this has been by focus­ing on the tin design. Tzamouranis said that adding the artis­tic dimen­sion to the prod­uct helped the com­pany to sell the oils in con­cept stores.

“We always try to focus on not only the qual­ity but also the look,” he said. ​“We want peo­ple who buy our prod­ucts because they like our design.”

Tzamouranis added that the focus on design increases the appeal of pur­chas­ing olive oil as a gift. ​“Olive oil is always a good present because you always need it,” he said. ​“You always use it, espe­cially if it looks nice.”

The com­pany also sub­mits its olive oils to a range of com­pe­ti­tions, includ­ing the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, where its OEL Zoe brand, a del­i­cate organic Koroneiki sourced from cen­te­nary and mil­lenary trees, earned a Gold Award.

When all is said and done, Tzamouranis does not believe that any sin­gle pro­ducer is mak­ing the world’s best olive oil. However, he thinks that prov­ing your qual­ity pro­vides value to cus­tomers, which is the busi­ness’s core com­po­nent.

“I would not say that I’m mak­ing the best olive oil because many peo­ple are mak­ing good olive oils,” Tzamouranis con­cluded. ​“I’m try­ing to be authen­tic in what I’m doing, and I’m try­ing to give the peo­ple what they deserve.”