Switzerland
The Olivado story began at the very beginning of the 21st century, in Kerikeri in the beautiful Bay of Islands near the top of New Zealand’s North Island. An innovative team, comprising a former chef, a legal brain, a marketing whiz, an internationally renowned food scientist, and an international investor, working together with scientists at Massey University, New Zealand’s premier Food Science University, pioneered and perfected the process of oil extraction from the avocado. The unique process they developed is used exclusively in the Olivado production plants. Olivado’s process uses just the pulp of the avocado – that’s all. Our focus is on quality, taste, and better health for people and the planet. Olivado is now the world’s largest producer of extra virgin cold-pressed avocado oil and the leading brand sold in supermarkets in more than 31 countries. In 2007 we began a pilot project in a temporary facility near Nairobi, and within six months had sourced over 700 small farm holdings. Today that number is almost 2000, the majority of our farmers are women. We have created hundreds of direct and thousands of indirect jobs, both at the factory and on the farms, helping improve the livelihoods of our farmers through increased income, enabling them to purchase and maintain livestock, educate their children, and build quality homes. We have our own incredible biogas plant, which allows us to use the by-products from our factory to power it, provide fuel for vehicles, and produce 3,000 MT of fertilizer. With this clean natural gas, Olivado power the factory, coolstores and our packhouse. This uses all of our waste, producing 286,000 litres of diesel equivalent, or 1.5m kWh of energy, making our operations totally sustainable. Olivado buys our avocados directly from small bio-diverse farms, paying a premium set price, thus bypassing brokers and guaranteeing the farmers a regular income.