Once considered the nectar of the gods, this sweet and sticky substance has been around for over 3000 years. A gift from the bees, honey continues to play a vital role in Greece. In recent times though, as Greece went commercial, so did many of its natural products, including honey. But the past always has a way of creeping up again to remind us of how things were done originally.
On a rainy and crisp winter morning I meet Nikos Ouranos and his business partner and wife Eugenia Xanthopoulou, a young, well educated couple that decided to leave their professional careers in 2004 (by choice) when Greece was in its economic glory to reinvent organic Greek honey. As Nikos explains, producing 100 per cent pure organic Greek honey is no simple feat, but worth every effort. Needless to say they’ve never looked back.
Where are we geograph-ically? One sets off from the small town of Arta, and 20 kilometres worth of a long and winding yet scenic trail later, we arrive at Nikos’ and Eugenia’s bee haven, a place called Ano Kalentini. The region’s climate – a combination of warmth and humidity – its earth quality and abundance of untouched flora (6,300 different herb species to be precise, exist in the Pindos mountain range), not to mention the loneliness of this location, are ideal features for organic honey production. In other words, the deserted landscapes of the North-western Greek mountains are perfect turf for bees, and what Nikos and Eugenia have essentially accomplished is to give meaning to an abandoned land through the art of beekeeping. Most flourishing plants require animal pollinators to reproduce, bees being the best. Not only do Nikos’ and Eugenia’s bees make great honey, they ensure that nature is kept healthy and fertile.
Their brand Ebion is EU certified and in 2010 it was the first in Greece to be USDA organic certified. This at a time when EU certified organic wasn’t recognized by the USDA. Ebion is also the first organic Greek honey to be exported to the US under the trade name Ariadne Pure. Aside from honourable mentions in Greek gourmet magazines, international awards include Gold for Ebion’s Red Fir variety at the BiolMiel International Competition in 2009, Silver in 2011 for Pine and Silver in 2012 for Oak and Red Fir. Ebion’s success story is one of hard work and most of all, loyalty to the queen bee, her kin and her environment. So how and why did a suited and booted financial consultant and an archeologist from Athens move to no-man’s-land to start producing organic honey?
Ebion’s founders tell me they were amateurs initially and bees were simply a hobby before toying with the idea of starting their own professional production.
“In our day jobs we were working many hours, as we are now, never went home before dark and we just didn’t feel fulfilled,” Nikos explains.
A great amount of research on best practice, in addition to a careful quest for the best location, signing up to seminars, talking to locals, seeking the right finance and a well-planned strategy for growing a slow and sustainable business were all part of getting started. Nikos also adds trial and error. Of course, his business background helped.
What makes up their current land plot, the size of 0.7 hectares, was bought piece by piece, through self-finance and government funding schemes. On it is a small manufacturing and packaging unit where every room has its own well-defined purpose. Nothing is left to chance and everything happens in-house, from production to sealing the glass jars so that the consumer gets exactly the product that leaves its birth place. Ebion Honey sold ‘loose’ is strictly forbidden and against their founders’ policy. This is crucial to ensure that Ebion’s reputation is safeguarded and that their honey isn’t fiddled with in the supply chain.
Nikos and Eugenia are a new breed of young and educated farmers who refuse to go big because going big with honey production essentially means cutting corners, adding preservatives and ensuring that your honey looks, tastes and smells the same all year round. This, as Eugenia explains to me, is impossible because climate is never stable and every year’s harvest and production are different. One year it’s the oak tree that is bee friendly, other years it’s the thyme bush or it could be the red fir that best welcomes these buzzing creatures. So Nikos and Eugenia go where the bees want to go. These two are constantly on the move. Nikos jokes “it’s a great way to keep fit”. As it turns out, bee hives are heavy and bees are picky with their territory. These hungry and active insects desire the utmost flourishing of plants, and their owners are climbing places they’d never thought were possible just to please the minuscule beast.
The two bee owners and their bees have one thing in common. They are very fussy. It’s not surprising that Ebion’s product range consists of only two products and this because of simple logic. You can’t be good at everything. What are they? 100 per cent raw organic honey and 100 per cent raw organic bee pollen, never heated or blended so that all of its pollen stays intact.
I ask about future plans. The partners are optimistic and this, in an economy of doom and gloom, is a good sign.
“While the Greek market was shrinking this gave us the incentive to look elsewhere and we’ve had a great response so far,” Nikos tells me. It’s obvious that these two are not in the trade to become rich.
“We want to live humanly and produce an excellent product and excellent products come in small quantities,” they both gladly confirm and accept.
I finally ask what advice they would give to aspiring producers wanting to get involved in agriculture. While becoming a farmer has become almost fashionable, Eugenia advises to be cautious.
“It’s not as easy as it looks and there are many climatic surprises that could prove disastrous financially. There are many uncontrollable variables that new producers need to account for and coping with uncertainty is a must. Crossing your fingers and hoping for the best isn’t going to work. Do your research. Start as an amateur and build from there.”
* Special thanks to Ebion’s founders, Nikos Ouranos and Eugenia Xanthopoulou, for sharing their experience with the readers of Greece’s land development column series. Journalist Irene Maragos is the lead columnist of Greece’s Land Development Column Series. All comments are welcomed at: irene@tekmon.gr