150-Year-Old Sailboat Brings Olive Oil From Portugal to Britain

A nine­teenth-cen­tury sail­boat could be seen arriv­ing in the Newhaven marina. Complete with two wooden masts and tri­an­gu­lar, crim­son-col­ored sails, the Nordlys appeared to have arrived from a pre­vi­ous cen­tury.

The boat had come along an his­toric trad­ing route, which was used to carry Port from Portugal to England. However, instead of import­ing wine, the Nordlys’ crew unloaded one thou­sand liters of extra vir­gin olive oil.

The olive oil came pack­aged in five-liter bot­tles, which sold for £50 ($66.51) each. Crispin Field, on the receiv­ing end of the Sailboat Project, had not even bat­ted an eye­lash at this seem­ingly expen­sive price.

Extra vir­gin olive oil sells for about £4 to £5 per liter in the larger British super­mar­ket chains, but Field said that the qual­ity of the oil rel­a­tive to the price made it an easy sell. Field and his col­leagues pur­chased the 1,000 liters and lined up buy­ers before the oil had even left Portugal.

The idea to import olive oil to Britain via wind power was the brain­child of Alex Geldenhuys, a ship­ping coor­di­na­tor and co-founder of New Dawn Traders. She had pre­vi­ously met mem­bers of the Sailboat Project at an annual meet­ing of the Sail Cargo Alliance, which she orga­nizes.

Geldenhuys had already been ship­ping rum and choco­late to Britain via sail­boat for five years and she thought the same con­cept would also work well with olive oil. She began look­ing for part­ners who shared her envi­ron­men­tally-friendly vision and found Marije van den Boogaard via Facebook.

Boogaard, an olive farmer and olive oil som­me­lier, liked the idea and agreed to source and trans­port the olive oil in Portugal from Geldenhuys to England where mem­bers of the Sailboat Project would dis­trib­ute it.

With this task in mind, Boogaard met Emilia Reigado at a trade show in Portugal. The two chat­ted for a bit and Boogaard learned about Reigado’s sus­tain­able farm in the country’s north­west. Boogaard tried Reigado’s olive oil and loved it.

After dis­cussing the plan to trans­port the olive oil to Britain using only wind power, Reigado agreed to sell her last 1,000 liters on the spot.

Reigado grows an ancient vari­ety of olive and presses them to make olive oil on a small, fam­ily-run farm in Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, a region of north­west­ern Portugal com­posed of moun­tains and val­leys. Due to its unique cli­mate, the olives and result­ing olive oil pro­duced in the region have a dis­tinct fla­vor.

Reigado and her fam­ily have been grow­ing olives organ­i­cally for more than 20 years in Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo.

When Reigado heard about an oppor­tu­nity to extend her sus­tain­able way of doing things to the sup­ply chain, she could­n’t say no.

“I loved the idea of trans­port­ing the oil by sail­boat because it is a dif­fer­ent, envi­ron­men­tally friendly kind of trans­port,” Reigado said. ​“Our effort was val­i­dated by con­tin­u­ing the all nat­ural process of trans­port­ing the olives only using wind power.”

The olive oil was pack­aged into the same five-liter con­tain­ers in which they were sold and trans­ported to the coast where they met with the Nordlys, which had been char­tered by Geldenhuys.

This voy­age was a part of what she described as the sail­boat ship­ping renais­sance. Geldenhuys aims to rev­o­lu­tion­ize ship­ping by patron­iz­ing small, fam­ily-run farms and min­i­miz­ing the car­bon foot­print of trans­port­ing oil from farm to table.

Almost 90 per­cent of the world’s cargo trav­els by ship, which con­tributes four per­cent of global CO2 emis­sions. If the entire ship­ping indus­try were a coun­try, it would be the sixth largest emit­ter on the planet.

“We need to take the organic and fair­trade move­ment a step fur­ther by clean­ing up all aspects of cul­ti­va­tion, man­u­fac­ture and trans­port,” Geldenhuys said. ​“With our small wooden ships we will in no way com­pete with the giants of the exist­ing ship­ping indus­try, but on a human scale we can inspire greater aware­ness and a moti­va­tion for change through small prac­ti­cal actions.”

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