live cultivation, for centuries, was, as is known, the main occupation of the inhabitants of the area. Oil was that product that, during those difficult years of economic hardship, supported and helped not only the survival of families, but also the coverage of their other needs.

For olive grinding, initially there were simple oil production structures, the so-called Mills. From them arose more modern, more competitive units, the current olive mills, which at the beginning also had a simpler and somewhat different structure compared to today’s. In these there were no Centrifugal systems to separate the components of the olive (instead there were hydraulic presses), and the movement of the whole unit, at first, was done by heating water, then by burning oil and finally by electricity .

At that time, all these belonged to private individuals, who de facto monopolized the whole process. They alone defined and decided on the quality and the price paid for the producers’ oils.

In the 1920s and indeed after the Asia Minor disaster, economic conditions were particularly difficult. The struggle for self-sufficiency was a daily concern for a large part of the country’s population.

Against this exploitation they were accepting, the conditions were now ripe for something different, for something new. The trigger was given by the visit to the village of two representatives of the then Agricultural Bank, who informed and encouraged, as it seems, the residents about the possibility of building their own oil production unit themselves, as Cooperatives.

Discussions immediately began about how and why, and finally the zeal was such that in the shortest possible time, for those years, everything was completed (purchase of land, construction work, purchase and installation of machinery and everything else that was necessary for the operation of the olive mill. In the summer of 1925 the update was made and at the end of 1926 it was operational).