The Modern Olive Press (ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΟ ΕΛΑΙΟΤΡΙΒΕΙΟ); or, Mashing it up with the Pliakoni Family

If you're a Volosian, odds are that you have some olive trees in your family. Sure, you may live in a tiny apartment on the third floor of some reinforced concrete block flat in the city proper; but your family has likely held onto a nearby quarter of a hectare or so here or there. And on it: Olive trees that fed your great grandparents and continue to provide the roughly 60 kilograms (~ 130 pounds) of olive oil your family consumes, per capita, on an annual basis. The first week we arrived in Volos, actually, we were given the gift of family olive oil from George's generous mother [note: we're posting bigger pictures now, so click on any of them for larger versions]:

Don't let the recycled-water-bottle-packaging fool you. It was like tasting olive oil for the first time. But this post is not about the heavenly taste and aroma of local oil or olives (Eleni's mother gave us some jars of home-prepared eating olives…oh my God), nor is it about the renowned food generosity of Greek mothers; it's about how Greek families go about the task of turning their hand-picked olives into liquid gold. Simply put, they don't. Given the heavy labor or equipment requirement (pick one) for processing oil olives, families simply take their harvest to their neighborhood olive press. We were lucky enough to accompany Eleni's mom and dad (and ever-present, ever-patient translating brother Nikos) with their 400 kg of olives (the first of 3-4 harvests from their grove) to one such press the other night. From the outside, it doesn't look like much:

But ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΟ ΕΛΑΙΟΤΡΙΒΕΙΟ ΖΑΦΡΑΚΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ (The Zafrakopoulos Modern Olive Press, owned and managed single-handedly by the young Yannis Zafrakopoulos) is a slick and efficient modern factory in its 4th generation of providing quality oil-pressing services to the people of Volos. Here's how it works. A family makes an appointment and shows up at the allotted time with their harvested olives (minimum of 200 kg, please) – see the arriving truck in the above picture. One of the family members then dumps their olives into the hopper:

while Yannis, from his control panel, turns on the conveyer belt that lifts the olives from the hopper into the cleaner:

It is in this machine that the olives are swished around with water, bounced and dried, and blown with air to remove any debris (leaves, dirt, twigs, perseverant bugs):

And then the fun really begins. The condemned olives then move by Archimedes screw into the rough macerator, essentially a long bin inside which dull blades slowly spin, scraping/grinding the olives against the sides and stirring the olives-cum-olivemash:

Now that we've come this far, let's zoom out and give you an idea of the layout of the factory:

Being a (very aromatic) self-lubricated pulp, the olive mash is conveyed from the macerator onward through the rest of the equipment by means of pumping through flexible plastic tubing. Once macerated, the mash moves into one of Yannis' five individual batch heaters:

Inside these heaters you find a similar spinning blade apparatus as we saw in the macerator. The big difference here is that the walls of these batch heaters contain continuously circulating hot water. In other words, these things are big heat exchangers, efficiently heating the olive mash to around 40 C without mixing water with the mash. If you've heard of "cold-pressed" olive oil, you may be wondering what this heating is all about. It turns out that slightly heating the olive mash enables a greater volume of oil to be extracted (about 1 kg of oil from 7 kg of olives, versus the 14 kg of olives needed under "cold" conditions). There is a price exacted for this increase in volume, however, and it is (predictably) a decrease in nutritional quality. Presumably some of the desirable constituents of olive oil break down at higher temperatures. After stirring and heating for 30-40 minutes (or until the mash looks to have the right consistency according to Yannis' experienced eye), the mash is pumped into the centrifuge:

The large German-made centrifuge is the heart of the whole operation, able to handle up to 3 metric tons an hour, spinning it at high speeds to separate the oil from the waste:

We'll follow the waste in a second (a very cool story). For now, a close-up of the separated oil as it leaves the centrifuge:

and as it drips through the stainless steel screen, to be collected and pumped to another station for final filtering:

Before filtering, permit me a quick digression on the waste stream. All the mash waste is collected from the centrifuge and moved quickly and cleanly under the floor, then up and out of the factory into a waiting truck. This truck takes it to a nearby dehydrating facility (a separate business) and then brings back the dry residue to Yannis:

Why? These cracked little fragments of olive pit still have oil in them and, in fact, contain more energy per weight than diesel fuel. So Yannis uses them to heat the water required by the individual batch heaters…brilliant! According to Yannis, his little facility produces more than 150 metric tons of this fuel per year. Since he only requires 40 tons for his operations, he can sell off the other 90 as a nice side business. Now back to the story. The separated oil is pumped over to the final filtration station, where it is injected with hot water into a small vertical centrifuge:

Mixing oil with water? Indeed. The water helps to remove any hydrophilic impurities, and the centrifuge does a perfect job of removing all traces of it from the final product.

As the Pliakoni olive oil jug fills up (they got 50 kg of oil from their 400 kg of olives), Yannis takes a 10 ml sample and titrates it for acidity. This acidity measurement is what puts the oil in the "Extra Virgin" (lowest acidity), "Virgin" (medium), or "Commercial Grade" (high) class, the latter being destined for further refinement. The Pliakoni oil was, of course, extra virgin. As payment, Yannis generally just takes 12% of the oil produced, which he then sells to a wholesaler. But the Pliakoni's are partial to their own oil, so they ended up buying back their 12% directly to take home with them.

Quick (the whole process takes a little over an hour), clean (immaculate), easy (families come with olives and leave with oil), chemical-free (only water), energy efficient (cogeneration with oil pit fuel), and quiet. It really is a model business and an inspiration to see.

Thanks Nikos and Mama Pliakoni! (Mr. Pliakoni hid when he saw how silly the picture was becoming)

And thanks Yannis for a great tour of your impressive facility.

We'll be back again with some bread to take you up on your offer to toast it for us in your furnace so that we can dip it immediately in the fresh warm oil as it comes out. Who could refuse that?