Rox's EVOO(Olive Oil) for sale on Amazon!

[rox]

Here I have a cool picture for you, everybody likes pictures.
This picture is showing the end of our Basil Infused Olive Oil.
Over time the debris will decant down to the bottom of the tank and the clean oil will rise to the top as it is lighter.
We don't produce much Basil and Lemon Infused Olive Oil, we store it in the smaller 60 Liter stainless steel tanks that have a spigot on it. To fill the containers Nico simply opens the spigots and fills. When it gets near the bottom of the stainless steel storage tank he stops when he sees the oil coming out to cruddy. He pours it into 5 Liter tanks and let's it decant were he can see it.
If you buy unfiltered olive oil you run a high risk of it having a lot of crud in it. And by crud I mean the grindings of the olive, ground up pit, skin and the meat of the olive. Over time this crud ferments in the containers and it turns your olive oil rancid. This is the primary reason we filter our olive oil through pure cotton, to get rid of this crud. The day before I took this picture the crud was about half way up the container. Little by little Nico will pour off the clean oil into bottles, it is a real skill as you don't want to pour back in the crud that you have just decanted off. Our Basil and Lemon olive oil are not filtered, we don't make enough of it to filter it as you lose a ton through the filtering process as the cotton absorbs the olive oil so it is always going to have some crud in it, but not near the crud percentage as shown in the picture as the spigot we use to fill the bottles sits up higher on the storage tank, but still there is going to be a little crud. This is the stuff that sits lower than the spigot, Nico pours this from the top of the storage tank to empty the tank so he can clean it.
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[rox]

Busy, busy busy. Nico and i finished filling bubble wrapping and casing the olive oil, now we are palletizing it and trust me that is a real chore. Our olive oil is heavy and in shipping especially by ocean freight, we want to make sure that our pallets stay in tact, we don't want the cases slipping off the pallet. To do that we band each layer around on the pallet then when the pallet is built up to the top layer I bend down and draw strapping tape from under the pallet over the top and secure. Then at each and every joint I tie the criss cross joints. I take strapping tape from the bottom right to the upper left of the criss cross, I tie in 2 knots, then I take the strapping tape and go from the lower left to the upper right and then I put in 2 more knots, so each joint (crisss cross) has 4 knots in it.

I have to lay my head on the floor and look under the pallet to make sure that the strapping tape is not twisted underneath the pallet, most pallets I do that 8 times, 4 strapping tapes in each direction. Now I don't know if any of you have ever wrapped a pallet with the pallet stretch wrap but that is physically demanding also. Especially for the first one or two lower layers you have to bend down and walk and pull the pallet wrap tight and I usually go around at least 6 to 8 times, all the while being bent over. I find I am not as young as I used to be LOL!

Here is a picture of my cousin Chuck's pallet. I always take pictures before I use the black pallet wrap in case of damages by the shipping company I have proof of how well the pallet was secured. As the pallet moves onto the truck that picks them up for shipping I take more pictures. I do not care about the appearance of the cases, in fact I want the strapping tape to dig into the cases, that way I know I have a good "bite" and the cases are not going to move during ocean transport. We have enough packing material around the individual products that biting into the case does not bit into the products.
Here is a link that shows you what the pallets experience on the ocean.
REALLY do look at this video, then you will understand why we spend so much time and real effort on palletizing.
Any Fool Can Stuff a Container - YouTube
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The pallet you are looking at, my cousin Chuck's pallet is right around $5,000 of olive oil, so that is precious to us we do everything we can to make it arrive undamaged. That is why each criss cross joint I tie with 4 knots. My cousin Chuck has enough friends that he takes orders and sells it to his friends. Actually what happens, it is kind of like a pyramid, his friends take orders from their friends and family and everything goes through Chuck and we send him a pallet of olive oil, he collects and send us payment. Like one of his friends buys for 5 of her family members. I don't want to disclose our customers but what the heck cousin Chuck won't mind of ya'll look at his pallet pics so I picked his pallet to show you.

 

[ultrarunner]

Are composite pallets the norm for shipping in France?

I get about 10 pallets a week and always wood... never the composites.

A bakery nearby gets liquids in the IBC totes... they claim it is the most economical way to buy raw materials... most are one-way deliveries.

 

[rox]

Are composite pallets the norm for shipping in France?

I get about 10 pallets a week and always wood... never the composites.

A bakery nearby gets liquids in the IBC totes... they claim it is the most economical way to buy raw materials... most are one-way deliveries.

Plastic pallets, although I am sure there are other materials in there. Yes there are a lot of plastic pallets used here. To ship to the United States you have to use plastic pallets, if you use wood pallets it has to have a stamp, actually they heat up a branding iron and brand onto the leg of the pallet a symbol which indicates the wood in the pallet is not the type that insects would live in. I prefer the plastic pallets as they are easy to store, however Amazon requires wood pallets so shipping to Amazon we have to use one of those special wood pallets. We buy our big plastic pallets used and for the little ones we had to buy new. We prefer to buy used ones because they are cheaper.

Did you watch the video in the link I provided above?

 

[rox]

G-O-L-D
M-E-D-A-L
Baby
We just won our 2st1 Gold or Silver Medal. This competition is the French National Competition, Concourse Agricole Generale. Think of it as a State Fair but only for a country, it is HUGE.
I have not been able to enter the two previous years, as you have to have set minimums of oil to enter and because we produce mono varietals and stock them separately if we have a low harvest we don't make enough of any one kind to enter. This year was a good harvest so we entered. I entered the AOC de Provence which took a Gold Medal and also the Bouteillan which did not win a medal. I don't know why the Bouteillan didn't place, it rocks this year, it has that little citrus flavor to it again. But I am happy as a hog in mud with a Gold Medal for our AOC de Provence which is a blend and the biggest selling oil we make. Woo-Hoo! Can't wait to put this on the Amazon website. I still am working on shipping, it has been a struggle. But let's not focus on that, let's celebrate a very very prestigious WIN!
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[rox]

G-O-L-D
M-E-D-A-L
Baby
We just won our 21st Gold or Silver Medal. This competition is the French National Competition, Concourse Generale Agricole. Think of it as a State Fair but only for a country, it is HUGE.
I have not been able to enter the two previous years, as you have to have set minimums of oil to enter and because we produce mono varietals and stock them separately if we have a low harvest we don't make enough of any one kind to enter. This year was a good harvest so we entered. I entered the AOC de Provence which took a Gold Medal and also the Bouteillan which did not win a medal. I don't know why the Bouteillan didn't place, it rocks this year, it has that little citrus flavor to it again. But I am happy as a hog in mud with a Gold Medal for our AOC de Provence which is a blend and the biggest selling oil we make. Woo-Hoo! Can't wait to put this on the Amazon website. I still am working on shipping, it has been a struggle. But let's not focus on that, let's celebrate a very very prestigious WIN!
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[Otto Syracuse]

AWESOME! Sign me up for a liter!

 

[dmccarty]

That is great news. :thumbsup: Course it is just a big tease because we can't wait to get the oil!!! :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

rox, any news on the amazon oils as to when they will be available?

 

[rox]

It's been torture, pure torture to get this oil shipped out. I wasted a complete full mONTH with UPS ocean freight before I fanally abandoned them. The company that I used for years, I am sssigned a poor performing rep, who twice never even replied with a quote. For the first time we are shipping a container, okay it is a small one a 20ft container but still that feels pretty good. Our problem with shipping by container is that we do not have a dock and we are not skilled in how to stuff the container to have the cases on the pallets survive 30 degree ocean rolls. We always shipped less than container load so being packed in a container that was properly stuffed was included in the shipping price, this time we are shipping a container so now I had to figure out get a pro to stuff the container. UPS wanted an astronomic $700 to stuff the container. PLUS I had to pay the pick up the pallets charge. I thought this was outrageous. In the end UPS was so hard to work with that after a full month I dropped them.

You might get the idea that I am argumentative but try not to think of it that way, think of it as being aware and in control of every aspect of of my shipping. Anyway I had an argument in 2016 becasue when the shipping company was picking up my pallets to go to the pallets stuffing warehouse to be included with pallets form other companies (less than container load) I wanted the name and address of where my pallets were going and being dogmatic I got the answer.

Within 6 hours of me throwing in the towel with UPS Ocean freight I had an excellent quote from a Freight Forwarder, an open credit account, and an excellent quote from the business of the Container stuffing company. 6 Hours! And I wasted a damned MONTH with UPS. I am through with shipping through New Your/New Jersey those people are not agreeable people. Through my new Freight Forwarder I am shipping onto Norfolk Virginia.

In Norfolk I found a family owned and operated yet very large warehouse, that will strip (unstuff) my container and separate the pallets and deliver them to the various truckers who will pick up at their warehouse. Givens warehouse in Chesapeak Virginia were really nice. My trucking broker Leo Harvey at Freight Quote who I have used for years, gave me an excellent forward trucking quote from Chesapeak Virginia to all the various customers. I was in touch with my US Customs broker and she saved my butt. Now when you are shipping food you have to have a US based agent and importantly that agent MUST have a D & B Number to a US address. I have a D & B number but with our business address in France. I hurried up and got one with our USA address. That right there could have been a disaster and the UPS Customs Broker when I kept asking about our French Based D & B number if that was okay, never alerted me that it was not. My old Customs Broker told me no and saved me a world of hurt.

Then to be again disappointed I find out from my new Freight Forwarder that my shipment is not going out until April 11. It was supposed to go March 2th, so again ANOTHER 2 week delay.

While I am organizing my freight I get a notice from Amazon. Amazon used to offer free 6 months worth of storage and that worked great for our product as it sold pretty quick, no more! NOW Amazon is charging all the sellers a monthly storage fee AND they are taking a higher referral fee AND a greater fee when they do the shipping for the seller. So basically Amazon raised their rates I have to pay significantly.

Now i am going to ship the pallets of olive oil that is my Amazon stock to a fulfillment warehouse in Ohio ($25 per month storage per pallet + fees when the products get sent to Amazon in the future) Amazon only allows you 28 days from when you created an incoming inventory shipment and no way was i going to meet that with ocean shipping, so now I have an intermediate step, a fulfillment warehouse. They have pretty good rates but it is going to cost me over $1,000 in trucking from Norfolk to Ohio to get my product there. The only good news in this entire ordeal is I got great rates on getting the container stuffed and included with the container stuffing was delivery to the port $200. I got an excellent rate from the shipping company, and I got an excellent rate from Givens Warehouse in Chesapeake Virginia. I will have to wait for the final totals on everything but I figure I am saving about $2 on a container of olive oil in shipping over what UPS was quoting me. For every dollar spent on shipping that has to be added to the cost of the product. I know I will ahve to raise price based on nothing else but Amazon raising their rates to me, but I am working like Heck to drive shipping costs down. But now the shipping company has given me a two week delay. Grrr. It is hard, what I do is really hard. If you don't care about costs it is easy, many many easy options exist.

 

[ultrarunner]

It is enough to make and young man old... as my Grandfather would say.

What many do not realize is the sheer number of barriers of being in business and it grows exponentially with export/import.

My farming cousins now only sell at the farm and local farmers market... they say life is much easier and less stressful.

On the cost of shipping... this week a sent a small in size flat rate box with California Almonds to my friends in Austria... these are the Smokehouse Brand sold by Costco... 4 of the 2.5lb packages, not that weight matters as it is flat rate...

The postage without any additional services comes to about $90... so $90 to ship $60 worth of product makes me think I'm nuts!

In the past I had paid about $34 for the same package...

In the future I many just give them Amazon Gift Certificates... we would all come out ahead... no custom forms... lost or misdirected packages... etc.

 

[rox]

It is enough to make and young man old... as my Grandfather would say.

What many do not realize is the sheer number of barriers of being in business and it grows exponentially with export/import.

My farming cousins now only sell at the farm and local farmers market... they say life is much easier and less stressful.

On the cost of shipping... this week a sent a small in size flat rate box with California Almonds to my friends in Austria... these are the Smokehouse Brand sold by Costco... 4 of the 2.5lb packages, not that weight matters as it is flat rate...

The postage without any additional services comes to about $90... so $90 to ship $60 worth of product makes me think I'm nuts!

In the past I had paid about $34 for the same package...

In the future I many just give them Amazon Gift Certificates... we would all come out ahead... no custom forms... lost or misdirected packages... etc.

Yes the cost of shipping/postage internationally has really risen over the last 5 years. There is a low cost shipping company out of Poland I have used for personal goods, they do not do commercial shipping. They are based out of Chicago because you know there are a lot of people of Polish descent in Chicago, check them out,
Polamer Inc. - Personal Packages | Cars | Containers
Twice when I was staying by my mother & father I had bought material for the farm & was overloaded with luggage so I shipped through them. They receive the box in Poland and then they have deals with delivery companies and they delivered to me in France. The only issue is it takes a long time, but if you plan ahead it is well worth the cost savings. I bet your family would love Pistachio nuts as well, I am addicted to the salt and pepper pistachio nuts from Costco. In fact 4 big bags of pistachio nuts I ncluded in a box shipped to me in France through Poland.

 

[ultrarunner]

I remember in the old days it would take 4 to 6 months for a package to arrive... guess that was via the slow boat?

Continually amazed at the cost of most everything... a simple trip to the hardware store to buy a couple of nuts and bolts will eat up most of a $10 bill...

Nearby, is a small family Chinese Take Out... when I first started going there a Broccoli Beef with rice lunch plate cost $1.50 and this week is $7.95

Maybe I am just getting old and don't know it?

Among my older friends as a kid I would see the car guys very happy to get a few dollars for some old car part and I would be very happy because it would be cheap at the double the price.

My package just cleared customs in Vienna... so the Easter package of California nuts might just arrive in time for Easter... also put in a tin of Planters Premium Peanuts... got to support American Farmers and especially California Almond Growers.

Nuts and Citrus Fruit were always a staple for Holidays in Austria

 

[rox]

More BIG NEWS!!!
We WON our 22nd and 23rd Gold or Silver Medal in our Regional Olive Oil Competition.
I was very confused why our Bouteillan did not win a medal in the French National Competition. Honestly it is fabulous. We took a GOLD MEDAL for our AOC de Provence but the Bouteillan didn't win any medal at all, and I knew it should have. Fast forward to yesterday, we won a GOLD MEDAL for out Bouteillan and a Silver Metal for our AOC de Provence in our regional competition. This region comprises about 90% of all the olive oil produced in France so it is a big competition.
The truth is you are not going to medal every oil every year, but what you want to do is be consistent over the years to earn medals, you want to be recognized for something. We have been hindered because you have to always enter 1,000 liters as this is the minimum to enter and since we harvest and store our olive oil strictly by varietal we don't always meet that, we have the 1,000 liters if we mix it but honestly we don't want to mix it until we make our controlled blend our AOC de Provence. If we simply mixed everything all together it would be no problem we could enter more, but we don't . We like to keep our mono varietals separate so often times we don't meet the 1,000 liter minimum, we are only 12 US acres after all.
But a WIN, is a WIN,is a WIN! GOLD Medal for Bouteillan, Silver Medal for AOC de Provence. When you only enter 2 olive oils and you take 2 medals you really can't complain.

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[Kyle_in_Tex]

Congrats Rox.

 

[dmccarty]

Congratulations!

Can't wait to try some. :licking::licking::licking:

Later,
Dan

 

[dalola]

Boy, the stuff you find on TBN! Just read through all 34 pages.....what a great read!

Rox, I love your passion for olives, olive oil, and the way you do business. So inspiring and refreshing! Just from reading this, I have so much respect for what you've done, and are doing. Kudos!

I then promptly went to Amazon to place an order....to no avail. I gather they'll have some inventory soon? These special oils of yours seem time & quantity sensitive.

Really excited to try it! As a person with heart disease, it's something my wife & I have started using more of. I like the store brands, so I'm sure yours will be a most pleasant assault on the senses!

Thank you for what you do.

 

[rox]

Boy, the stuff you find on TBN! Just read through all 34 pages.....what a great read!

Rox, I love your passion for olives, olive oil, and the way you do business. So inspiring and refreshing! Just from reading this, I have so much respect for what you've done, and are doing. Kudos!

I then promptly went to Amazon to place an order....to no avail. I gather they'll have some inventory soon? These special oils of yours seem time & quantity sensitive.

Really excited to try it! As a person with heart disease, it's something my wife & I have started using more of. I like the store brands, so I'm sure yours will be a most pleasant assault on the senses!

Thank you for what you do.

You are so kind. Going to be very very honest with you, if you have heart disease you should cook with our olive oil. It is very HIGH in polyphenols. I paid a lot of money to have each and every varietal of our olive oil laboratory tested in polyphenols so I can say this with certainty. Each tin of our olive oil will arrive with that lab test included. You just gotta be a little more patient and wait. It leaves the port of Marseille on Wednesday, then 14 days on the ocean, then figure a week to clear US Customs, then it gets trucked to a fulfillment warehouse in Cleveland Ohio, the fulfillment warehosue will put the Amazon shipment stickers on the cases, then it gets trucked by pallet to Amazon, then Amazon checks it in and spreads it around to all of their warehouses so all said and done figure mid May before we are back up and stocked on Amazon.

It is really a pity but Amazon raised their storage fees, plus I have to now use a fulfillment warehouse in Ohio so i am going to have to raise the price of the olive oil. Nothing I can do about it. If I don't want to run out again I have to use a storage warehouse in the States.

Why Ohio? Why did I select a fulfillment warehouse in Ohio? There are tons of fulfillment warehouses in the United States, I started my search by looking for fulfillment in regions that have been economically challenged. If I am going to have to spend money on warehousing I wanted to spend my money in an area that really needed it, I confess to being a bleeding heart. Honestly I looked not just at geography and price, I looked at where my small injection into the local economy would do good. I ended up in Cleveland at a small family owned business, they used to be a straight up moving company but they have now diversified and are now serving as a fulfillment warehouse so I was happy to support them with our 3 pallets of olive oil. I want to do business with a company where I can call and actually speak to the warehouse manager and at WeFullFillIt I found that. Personal service. We are a small business, I searched and interviewed and compared until I found another small business that I thought would serve me well and that my business would boost them as well. If you are going to spend money, why not spend money in a socially conscious way? Think beyond just service and price.

Our olive oil is going to be excellent for 4 years at a minimum so it is not date critical. WHEN you produce olive oil LOW in acidity, LOW in Peroxide, the olive oil keeps, it doesn't turn rancid. It is taking a while to get there this year but I can sell it for at least 2 or 3 years and know it is still going to be spectacular. I just am so worried my Amazon customers will have forgotten about me because it has been so long since I have been available for sale there, and I have gone to all this expense, and then people don't buy. This is a worry I have. I pay all these expenses up front, what if people have moved on because we were not in stock? I worry about this. I worry a LOT about this.

 

[rox]

Thanks Dan. This is why we can never enter pure Aglandau in competitions. You have to have a 1,000 liter minimum and our AOC de Provence blend always uses a lot of Aglandau so we are using the Aglandau we produce putting it in our blend so we never then have an extra 1,000 left over to meet the minimum 1,000 liter threshold to enter that in a competition.

I know the Aglandau is your favorite but I urge you to try the Grossane and the Basil olive oil as well. Just try them. The Grossane (and I didn't send that much of it) is so so so good. Only use it cold, pour it straight over sliced tomatoes or tomatoe wedges. I know you like Aglandau but just try a little bit of the Grossane once. Out of all the olive oils we produce the one with the lowest yield is the Grossane. It takes about 15 kilo of olives to make a liter of Grossane, Aglandau and Salonenque takes 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 kilos to make one liter of olvie oil, so always the Grossane and the Bouteillan another low yielding olive, is going to cost more because the yield of the olive is very low, but what great olive oil. And the Basil we sent, I hope you try that too. The basil is going to blow your socks off, promise, i would not lie to you.

This is why i send the lower cost 0.25L bottles of olive oil, because it is lower cost to buy and people can try it at a lower price point and if they like it then they can order a bigger size.

 

[dalola]

You are so kind. Going to be very very honest with you, if you have heart disease you should cook with our olive oil. It is very HIGH in polyphenols. I paid a lot of money to have each and every varietal of our olive oil laboratory tested in polyphenols so I can say this with certainty. Each tin of our olive oil will arrive with that lab test included. You just gotta be a little more patient and wait. It leaves the port of Marseille on Wednesday, then 14 days on the ocean, then figure a week to clear US Customs, then it gets trucked to a fulfillment warehouse in Cleveland Ohio, the fulfillment warehosue will put the Amazon shipment stickers on the cases, then it gets trucked by pallet to Amazon, then Amazon checks it in and spreads it around to all of their warehouses so all said and done figure mid May before we are back up and stocked on Amazon.

It is really a pity but Amazon raised their storage fees, plus I have to now use a fulfillment warehouse in Ohio so i am going to have to raise the price of the olive oil. Nothing I can do about it. If I don't want to run out again I have to use a storage warehouse in the States.

Why Ohio? Why did I select a fulfillment warehouse in Ohio? There are tons of fulfillment warehouses in the United States, I started my search by looking for fulfillment in regions that have been economically challenged. If I am going to have to spend money on warehousing I wanted to spend my money in an area that really needed it, I confess to being a bleeding heart. Honestly I looked not just at geography and price, I looked at where my small injection into the local economy would do good. I ended up in Cleveland at a small family owned business, they used to be a straight up moving company but they have now diversified and are now serving as a fulfillment warehouse so I was happy to support them with our 3 pallets of olive oil. I want to do business with a company where I can call and actually speak to the warehouse manager and at WeFullFillIt I found that. Personal service. We are a small business, I searched and interviewed and compared until I found another small business that I thought would serve me well and that my business would boost them as well. If you are going to spend money, why not spend money in a socially conscious way? Think beyond just service and price.

Our olive oil is going to be excellent for 4 years at a minimum so it is not date critical. WHEN you produce olive oil LOW in acidity, LOW in Peroxide, the olive oil keeps, it doesn't turn rancid. It is taking a while to get there this year but I can sell it for at least 2 or 3 years and know it is still going to be spectacular. I just am so worried my Amazon customers will have forgotten about me because it has been so long since I have been available for sale there, and I have gone to all this expense, and then people don't buy. This is a worry I have. I pay all these expenses up front, what if people have moved on because we were not in stock? I worry about this. I worry a LOT about this.

Honesty.... Based on the previous 34 pages, it's pretty clear to me this is how you operate. I take your word about your business as the gospel.

Mid-May it is....I will keep checking. Thanks for supporting my home state! I try to do the same with my consumer dollars.....find "value", not just price or convenience.

It's not much, but I will promote your product every chance I get. Wife & I have friendships with numerous "foodies" & restaurant types, so we'll do our best to network your product.

Looking forward to placing that first order. :thumbsup: