The Art of Business>Business Profile

Well-Oiled: Portuguese Organic Olive Oil
By Mala Hoffman. Photos by Megan McQuade

Ana Marie Cordeiro’s family never intended to produce organic olive oil on their farm in Portugal. But it was their only option. “It’s because we were too poor to buy the chemicals, and now we know better,” she says laughing. “Otherwise, we’d be just like Spain.”

The Cordeiro farm is located in Portugal’s Villarica Valley about half of the 600-acre farm, is planted with the olive trees that are used to produce Ana Marie’s Organic Olive Oil, which Cordeiro has been distributing in the New York area for the past four years. Cordeiro, who also has a home in Pleasant Valley, inherited the farm from her grandmother more than 30 years ago, but rented it to other farmers for about 10 years before taking over production herself. “I was not qualified,” she recalls. “But I made a mistake. I’d be much further along by now if I had done it then. I’d be like Colavita. But I was too young to know that this is something I wanted to do.”

Once she did take over, however, she did it with gusto. She received several government grants to finance the purchase of additional trees, and sought on the planting advice of agricultural engineers. “We test our soil like you test your blood,” Cordeiro says. “We know that this piece of land needs cherries, so we plant cherries here. We know that this two acres has a lot more rock, so we put in walnuts. We have some really, really hot spots, so we put in fig trees.”

The farm is operated under what Cordeiro describes as an “eco-smart” system. “We have higher ponds that feed the lower ponds so the water circulates naturally and is refreshed,” she notes. “We have mountain dogs that defend our Border collies that protect our sheep.” The sheep graze in the fields and serve as both a natural insect control and fertilizer. "In order to make a farm sustain itself, all of the animals have to work together."

In order to be certified organic in Portugal, a farm needs to follow strict government guidelines, Cordeiro says. (The Portuguese organic certification is accepted by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York.) Cordeiro works hard to ensure the farm’s compliance. "We keep four acres of untouched land for every fifty acres to keep our animals in," she says. “If a tree becomes diseased, it needs to be pulled out and burned so as not to infect the others. And any manure that is brought in needs to be certified organic as well. Our sheep are good, but they're not able to do the whole farm," Cordeiro notes. “It's costly.”

In fact, the only modern application used is in the pressing room, which is now “very, very high-tech,” Cordeiro says. “They used to use stone, but it’s not clean enough and it’s not practical. Anyone who says they still use stone, it’s just for show.”

In the pressing room, which Cordeiro describes as "a building the size of Barnes and Noble," whole olives are crushed and then the core, or the pulverized remnants, are separated from the oil. The first oil to emerge is a lighter oil, with lower acidity. The acidity increases as the oil lingers in the press (mingling with the core) so that the oil becomes increasingly more acidic, fuller, and fruitier as the press continues to operate.

So far, Cordeiro’s efforts are paying off. The farm produces an average of 400 cases of olive oil a season, most of which is shipped to the United States. The three types of oil, distinguished by acidity level, are all “high-end”, Cordeiro says, and retail for $13 locally and $20 in New York City. Cordeiro says that she works hard to hold down costs in the medium-range, so she selects simpler bottles and labels. “I don’t believe in putting more money on the outside. I’d rather have it on the inside,” she says. “I could put a fancy cork with a top on it, and that’ll cost me $1.50. This is selling in the middle. I want to give the person the worth for their money, the value.”

The oils are sold at farmer’s markets and in specialty stores and are also available through the company’s Web site, www.anamarieorganicoliveoil.com. “All of my stores are out,” Cordeiro admits. “I’m waiting for my new shipment, which is on the water now and should be here soon.” And Ana Marie’s Organic Olive Oil was recently cited in the “Best of the Year” issue of Bon Appetit magazine.

Still, despite the product’s popularity, Cordeiro feels somewhat limited. “The problem I’m having is, I’m 55 years old and I’m working so hard. I do all the markets and I do all the books,” she says. While she’d like to expand, she hasn’t yet reached the “tipping point” in her sales to be able to take the next step. “I would want to do all of the Mrs. Green’s stores, and the Mother Earth’s,” Cordeiro observes. “If I had a driver, we could supply all these smaller local chains.” And she might even be able to splurge a bit on herself. “I just need one little jump in order to be able to get my nails done,” she says laughing.

Expansion might come through her next idea, which is to find an American market for the organic almonds she grows on the other half of her Portuguese property. “I have three big buildings full of almonds,” she says. “I sell them for $1 a pound to pastry shops. I can compete with California. It’s just a matter of bringing in the almonds to the same customers, now that the olive oils opened the door.”

In the meantime, she’ll continue to oversee the olive groves and nurture the family roots. “You have to love it,” Cordeiro emphasizes. “If you don’t love the farming and what it does for your health and what it does for humankind, you just fold it in and forget it.”

Sidebar:

Rite of Passage

With a farm that dates back at least five generations, family legacy is important to Cordeiro. That’s why she recently named her six-month-old granddaughter as her successor. “My granddaughter owns the farm, just as my grandmother passed it on to me,” she says.

While her brothers received the family’s port wine business, Cordeiro was given the olive trees because “olive oil is more feminine,” she says. It was also the thing that sustained the family centuries earlier, when they first came as Jews from Spain. “The only thing they knew was how to work with olive trees,” Cordeiro says. The land itself, she adds, is very similar to Israel in terrain.

The region is called Alfandega da Fé, which Cordeiro says can be translated as “land of the faith,” and many Jews settled there. Their homes were distinguished by large stone archways dominated by a cross, which she says would indicate to the local townspeople that they were “church-fearing people.”

Cordeiro recalls that when she was a child, she used to go to the marketplace with her grandmother. “I wondered why we didn’t dress as well as other people, and she said, ‘Don’t worry, we have a little more money than they do.’ I was embarrassed of my grandmother, but now I wish I hadn’t felt that way. I understand now that when something is ours, we enjoy it more.”

It’s something she hopes to pass along to her granddaughter, but without some of the hardships farming can entail. “Now the love for my granddaughter is really getting me working harder,” Cordeiro says. “Later on in life, I want to see my granddaughter come in in a limousine. If my grandmother knew that Bon Appetit named our olive oil as the best, she would be so happy, so happy.”