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.