A local Owen Sound family is producing gold olive oil.
The Rallis family’s ice-pressed olive oil has won two gold medals at the Los Angeles Gourmet Product Awards.
The family has been making olive oil for a century in their native Greece, but in 2009, brothers Theo and Steve Rallis created a new pressing process.
Theo Rallis says it all started when Steve, a naturopathic doctor, wanted to conduct a study in his clinic on the effects of an essential fatty acid diet on blood pressure.
But they found none of the olive oils they looked at using had live enzymes.
When engineer Theo travelled to Greece, he discovered “cold-pressed” actually means pressing olives at temperatures between 30 and 55 degrees Celsius.
He says that kills all the “true life” in the oil, so he developed an “ice-pressing” process.
Rallis says they took their olive oil to the Fancy Foods Show in Washington, DC, and that’s where they met the people behind the LA award show.
He says they were blown away and asked them to enter the contest.
Rallis says it paid off, as they won the categories most important to them — best olive oil, and best raw food.
Rallis says they’re focusing on finding more land in Greece to increase the amount of olives grown each year, and increase production of the oil.
He says they haven’t marketed the oil yet, but his family sells out every bottle they produce each year.
They sell it at their restaurant, Nick’s Foodworks, in Sauble Beach.
