Our history

FIRST PERIOD
POLYDOROS E. ANDREOU 18 … – 1910

The first official reference to our ancestors, in texts on the history of the village of Hantzi Aigialia, as a business owner of the mill is Polydoros Andreou . We do not know when and where he was born and if he was the first of the family who moved to Hantzi.Probably he founded the mill, in the same area that lived, on the edge of the village toward the Meganiti (the river surrounding the village from the north).

In late 1860 he married Adriana Maradi from the nearby village of Gropas (Lacca) and gets six kids. Stathis, Elias, Panagiota, Andrew, Georgia and Pantelis. His stormy life led the economic situation of the family in poverty. His eldest son, Stathis, forced to immigrate in 1890 to USA.
After any difficulties and almost inhuman living conditions, managed to recover financially. Pay up the patrimony and calls the other siblings in America, except for Elias intended for transmission of paternal property and Panagiota which was already married. Establishes in Saouthmpen of the Indianapolis a thriving business restaurant – patisserie.

SECOND PERIOD
ELIAS ANDREOU 1910 – 1957

In 1910 Polydoros dies and the management of the mill takes his son Elias. In the mill until that time used horses as the driving force behind the millstones, where grinded the olive fruit for the hydraulic press, pressing the pulp between big bags (filters) and two or three people who rotated the screw with a long wooden bar (manela). The fluids coming out of the filters of hydraulic presses were placed in tanks, where it remained as long as needed to separate with the method of sedimentation, the oil from other fluids.

Elias married in 1910 Georgia Christopoulou and acquire with six children. Polydoros, Stathis, Andriani, Apostolis, Panagiota and Barbara. With a progressive spirit and the support of his brother Stathi in early 1910 installed diesel enginnes that uses as a driving force in all phases of the production process, where required thrust. Along with installing diesel, he installed a disel generator and the electricity, which was produced during the period that the mill was operating, was used exclusively for lighting, not only for the mill but also for the houses near the mill. Thanks to the innovative thinking of Elias, the community of the village Hantzi can be one among the first Greek villages that experienced the electricity.
In early 1930 adds to the production process a centrifugal separetor, replacing the process of sendimentation.

The difficult years of Nazi occupation, with the support of the already adult son Stathis, using elaborate and ingenious constructions, intercepted large quantities of oil produced, to avoid the heavy taxation of the producers.
Elias Andreou served as chairman in of one of the first agricultural cooperatives, the Cooperative Union Panaigialeio, with currants, the only product, quality Vostitsa, and in his days the Association saw days of prosperity. In collaboration, cooperation and economic partnership with his brother Stathis, construct public welfare projects in the village (school, laundry taps and cistern for watercollection, home to the resident priest), endow girls and help people any way they can.

THIRD PERIOD
EFSTATHIOS ANDREOU 1957 – 1986

In 1957 Elias dies and management of the mill takes his son Efstathios. Already married since 1952 with Athena Karlesi has acquired with her two children, Georgia and Elias.
The company is constantly running, but in 1964 the community Hantzi characterized as sliding and necessarily facilities transferred to the neighboring village Koumaris, where is and operated today.
In 1968, the electrification of the region, replacing diesel engines with electric motors.The 1974 is a total renovation with new, more functional machines without changing anything in the process. Although they had begun to appear on the market the first decanter, not chosen as the mode of production due to the necessary use of high temperatures and mixtures with large amounts of water, conditions under which the oil loses almost all its beneficial health properties.
The immigration wave of 1950 and 1960 causes its labor shortages. The number of employees was more than enough for the size of the company and its management becomes more difficult. In this difficult period of time, his wife Athina, Civil Servant in the main profession, with her personal work and her support, becomes the soul for the company. In 1976 a severe heart attack forces Efstathios to abstain from the responsibility of management, which was assumed by Andrew Chrysanthopoulos who was already married to Georgia, with the support of Athina.

PERIOD FOURTH
ANDREOU ELIAS 1988 –TODAY

After the death of Eustathios in 1986 the buisness remains in Andrew Chrysanthopoulo’s control for a year, and in 1988 Eustathio’s son, Elias, undertakes the buisness. Elias had alredy been married from 1979 with Andriana Fassari and they had four children together, Polidoros, Athina, Dimitra and Eystathia. Ph.D. degree in Mathematics, with close contacts in a wide range of science, inspiredby the progressive spirit and dissipates the enterprise spirit of optimism.

After methodically addressed each of the nutrients in the oil, he was focused to isolate those factors which, in the process of producing oil, could adversely affect negatively the benefits the oil and he decides the maintainance of the traditional process, despite the economic burden which entails a number of improvement interventions.

• the time spent the grain to the mill is minimized
• the entire production line is replaced by stainless steel
• the temperature is reduced to less than 20 ° C, while the time of massaging in the millstone is lengthed
• the amount of water that is impuritied in the production process is minimised in the lower possible level

As a result of all these things was obviously the better quality of the olive oil. The products that are produces from the buisness, due to their excellent quality, they always have growing demand.

TODAY

From 2009 the buisness works as a partnership and it’s members are Elias’s kids, Polidoros and Athina. Polidoros is a mechanical engineer and Athina is a graduate of the Music University of Athens, and both, they give new impetus to business objectives. With great emphasis on maintaining quality, they broaden the customer base of both oil producers who trust in the company the production of oil by the wrist, and consumers who prefer the olive oil which is still produced by traditional process as the basis of their diet