Stages of Production

1. Incoming Raw Material: Olives are picked and put in big pierced chests  in order to let the air pass freely. This is useful to avoid the deterioration of the olives. Finally we take them to the oil mill.
   
2. Cleaning and Washing: During harvest, olives are picked with foreign materials such as pieces of branches, leaves, soil, insects etc. anda re brought to the factory with all these. Amounts of these foreign material depend on the climate, region and way of picking. Effectively cleaning the olives of these foreign materials has a significant impact on the quality of the olive oil. For example, more leaves may lead to a more greenish color and sensually unpleasant results.
   
3. Crushing and Pressing: Olives are mechanically crushed and pressed as a result of which oil drops are joined with each other to form bigger oil particles. This process facilitates the separation of the oil from the fruit in the following stages.
   
4. Kneading Malaction: Crushed and pressed olives are grinded with the help of some water under 30 ˚ C in order to obtain an homogenous structure.
   
5. Decantation: After the kneading phase the following step is the centrifugation which is done by horizontal centrifugal separators, called “Decanters”. The decanter is used to separate oil from the olive paste through the centrifugal force and this needs water at about  30°C. These machines aim at separating the liquid phase from the solid by exploiting the top speed and the various specific weights of the different phases to separate (oil, water, olive husks). This system offers  a lot of advantages in comparison  to other ones, such as automatic independance of all operations and simplification of the various phases; more hygiene, a higher working speed and low labor cost.
   
6. Centrifugal Separation: In the last phase, oil is separated from water and impurities by centrifugation. Oil is now ready to be used or bottled in scentless rooms protected from light and at a temperature of about 15°C.