`One Answer to Higher Profits Might be in the Leaves - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

One Answer to Higher Profits Might be in the Leaves

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Jan. 14, 2013 13:15 UTC
Summary Summary

Leftover olive leaves from oil mills in Greece, usu­ally used as fer­til­izer, can instead be dried and exported to coun­tries like Japan, Korea, and the USA to pro­duce tea, poten­tially increas­ing prof­its for pro­duc­ers. Olive leaf tea is gain­ing pop­u­lar­ity due to its nutri­tional value, and pro­duc­ers in Greece should con­sider tak­ing advan­tage of this oppor­tu­nity to uti­lize their excess leaves and boost rev­enue from an oth­er­wise under­uti­lized resource.

Anyone vis­it­ing an oil mill in Greece dur­ing the pro­duc­tion sea­son would see a huge pile of olive leaves accu­mu­lated at a cor­ner of the prop­erty after the olives have been defo­li­ated.
This solid byprod­uct is of neg­li­gi­ble impor­tance to the pro­ducer, and it usu­ally serves as a soil fer­til­izer. But this pal­try left­over can play a more impor­tant role, adding to the producer’s slim prof­its.

Dried olive leaves are used in coun­tries like Japan, Korea and the USA to pro­duce tea. Back in 2006 there was only one Greek pro­ducer export­ing olive leaves to Japan for €3,5 per kilo, and since then only a few oth­ers have started such a ven­ture. The task is not a demand­ing one, with the only pre­req­ui­site being that the leaves must come from organic olive groves to avoid the pres­ence of for­eign sub­stances.

Olive leaf tea is becom­ing quite pop­u­lar and is con­sid­ered to be of high nutri­tional value. Producers in Greece should con­sider tak­ing advan­tage of the big quan­ti­ties of olive leaves going prac­ti­cally unex­ploited and increase their rev­enue, at least mar­gin­ally.

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