The Lesbian Donkey
The Lesbian Donkey is a small family business that produces excellent fresh olive oil. The name comes as a tribute to an animal that has worked for more than 500 years in our steep slopes and is now slowly becoming extinct. Based in Lesbos, our company has a strong social orientation and its vision is to help the average regional farmer find a better way to the market. |
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Two young people, Spiros and Lina, moved away from Athens when their first daughter was born and started cultivating olive fields at the Greek island of Lesbos. Their idea was to make a difference by producing premium organic oil in a way that goes beyond organic farming! Their method is to work in the traditional way, manually without the use of machinery. Often abandoned and inaccessible, olive groves where chosen in order to revive part of the long abandoned countryside of the Plomarian region, widely known for its ouzo production. They created the brand The Lesbian Donkey. As a symbol of hard work and patience, the donkey reflects qualities necessary for this kind of extreme farming. On the other hand it signifies a whole era that is rapidly vanishing, since machinery is taking over in almost every cultivating process. Today the donkey as part of this rapid disintegrating environment is on the verge to become extinct. But also beyond these environmental projections, the key vision of The Lesbian Donkey is to leave a positive social footprint by providing a direct route to the market for the much suffering Lesbian olive oil farmer. The Lesbian Donkey premium olive oil is certified organic by EU and also German Bio-Siegel and is already available in some gourmet and specialized shops in Germany. The product is fresh, unprocessed, with a pleasantly bitter and spicy taste. More information is available from their site and their Facebook page. |
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| Address | See map: Google Maps |
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| Website | ||
| First Year in Business | ||
| Grower and/or Producer | ||
| We grow olive trees | ||
The variety is called Valanolia or Kolovi. Our trees will give a good harvest every 2 or 3 years. Due to steep terrain all process of harvest is done manually. This is not a mechanized - industrialized production. We do not intervene in the farm apart from harvesting, cleaning and pruning (every 4 to 7 years). Planting of trees in our region is dated back to 17th century although signs of civilization go back to many centuries BC. |
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| We produce olive oil | ||
Harvest starts in November. Milling usually takes place the same day and no longer than 48 hours. Primarily we store in 5 tones inox containers and after the oil settles bottling small quantities and 2nd storage in inox pressurized with nitrogen. No filtering takes place thus the oil retains its blurness for some time. Peroxide, K values at its lowest with acidity never above .5%. Taste at its full slightly bitter, very spicy and aromatic!!! |
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| Name | Spiros Avgiris | ||
| Company | The Lesbian Donkey | ||
| Title | Founder |
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| Telephone | +30 6979576179 |
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Was born in New York and grew up in Athens-Greece. After many cultivating attempts in his grandparent's farm during the 2000's he finally moved permanently to Lesbos with his family after his first daughter was born in 2011. Since then he was mostly involved in farming until the 2013 founding of their packaging and export company. |
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