Plugging Into an Olive Tree's Good Vibrations

This week a cos­metic com­pany, Oliveda, announced their pur­chase of 800,000 square meters of land hous­ing around 11,000 mature olive trees, boost­ing the company’s exist­ing port­fo­lio of 10 mil­lion square feet of trees. The com­pany, which pro­duces olive-based skin care prod­ucts, also con­nects peo­ple to the ​“ther­a­peu­tic vibra­tions of olive trees” via its unique green-tech wear­ables known as ​“Olives.”

Oliveda founder and CEO Thomas Lommel says he mor­phed from a real estate investor into a nat­ural skin care man­u­fac­turer and ​“olive tree whis­perer.”

His trans­for­ma­tion began in 1997 while he was liv­ing in an olive tree house in Andalusia. Lommel said he cured him­self with sub­stances sourced from the sur­round­ing trees and con­tem­plated what he would do if he pos­sessed all the time and all the money in the world.

Lommel dis­cov­ered his pas­sion was con­nect­ing with, invest­ing in and pre­serv­ing ​“moun­tain” olive trees. In 2001, he devel­oped his first olive-based prod­uct from the cell sap of an ancient olive tree’s leaves. This led to the found­ing of Oliveda in 2003.

Olive oil and leaf extract are the main ingre­di­ents in the Oliveda range. The com­pany says its prod­ucts are unique in their high potency of cell elixir and rich in the hydrox­y­ty­rosol.

In 2015, Lommel launched a high-tech sys­tem to con­nect peo­ple ​“to the nat­ural energy and ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits of moun­tain olive trees in remote Spanish groves.” The Olive Tree People project deliv­ers ​“olive tree home­opa­thy” by trans­mit­ting vibra­tions in real time from olive trees to wrist­bands called ​“Olives.” Multiple users can be served via a ​“Big Olive” device installed in the home or office.

Oliveda’s olive groves are pro­tected in a nature reserve and thrive with­out irri­ga­tion, fer­til­izer or chem­i­cal pes­ti­cides, accord­ing to the com­pany. Lommel believes that moun­tain olive trees develop a pri­mor­dial force in their strug­gle to sur­vive, which results in a dif­fer­ent energy to con­ven­tion­ally farmed olive trees. According to Lommel, yields are lower than from con­ven­tion­ally grown olive trees but the inten­sity of the ingre­di­ents is higher.

In 2015, Oliveda opened its first Olive Tree Pharmacy in Berlin. This was quickly fol­lowed by stores in Düsseldorf and Taipei. The olive-based skin care prod­ucts are pack­aged in brown, phar­macy-style bot­tles and flasks.

Oliveda self-financed its recent $15.4 mil­lion pur­chase. The com­pany has ambi­tious expan­sion plans which include adding more moun­tain olive groves to their port­fo­lio.

The com­pany claims the 11,000 new trees have the poten­tial to bring in annual rev­enue of $61 mil­lion from the green-tech ​“olive” wear­ables, not to men­tion extra vir­gin olive oil which they sell for €43 ($48.39) per liter.

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