Thousands of years ago, perhaps in the time of Christ or even earlier, a bird flew over the mountains of southern Greece.
It plucked an olive from a tree in the valley below, ate the flesh, and carried the pit skyward. Somewhere high in the Laconian peaks, the bird dropped that single seed. Against all odds, it took root in the rocky terrain, growing into what would become a wild olive tree, a skeletal sentinel thriving without human intervention for millennia, surviving on nothing but Greek terrain and weather.
This is how the ancient wild olive trees were born. And this is the story that drives Evan Karavitis, the Australian founder of The Wild Olive, whose premium olive oil is now making waves among chefs, health advocates, and longevity experts worldwide.
Today, that same kind of “sickly looking skeleton of an olive tree”, as Karavitis describes them, harbour an extraordinary secret. Despite their unprepossessing appearance, wild olive trees produce oil with polyphenol content that reaches 2,000 milligrams per kilogram, almost six times the minimum 350 milligrams per kilogram required to earn a European Union health claim. It places The Wild Olive’s oil in the top three per cent of oils worldwide for medicinal benefit.
“Because of the terrain in Greece and the way it thrives, we pull an additional polyphenol content of 2000 plus milligrams per kilogram,” says Karavitis. “Your average Greek olive oil is around 500 milligrams per kilogram.”
Evan Karavitis, founder The Wild Olive
A Landscape Older Than Christianity
The trees Karavitis works with aren’t merely old. Some are ancient, dating back more than 2,500 years to before the time of Christ. In the groves of Krokees in Nea Sparti, in the Peloponnese, olive trees have stood witness to the entirety of recorded Western history.
“We’ve got trees that are non-existent in Australia. Two and a half thousand years old down in Krokees,” he says. “Christ was on this earth 2,000 years ago, so you’re talking about trees that were planted before Christ. To put an age on these trees, you have to call them ‘BC’ – Before Christ.”
The age of these trees is determined through genetic testing for ageing and variety, which provides approximate dates, as well as through the sheer size of the trunks. Karavitis promises that when The Wild Olive brand ambassador, celebrity chef George Calombaris visits the groves with him in January, the experience will be unforgettable. “I’ve even told George: “Mate, you haven’t seen olive trees like this”. When he goes there, he will be absolutely blown away by the size of the roots and stumps of the trees.”
What makes The Wild Olive truly unique, however, is not just the age of some trees, but the wild nature of the groves themselves. These are self-pollinated wild olive trees scattered across mountain terrain, growing entirely without intervention. “They pretty much grow themselves,” Karavitis says. “They’re not looked after at all. It’s a God-sent, Mother Nature thing, and the medicinal benefits speak for themselves.”
The distinction is critical. While some producers chase high phenolic levels through irrigation, fertiliser, pruning or potassium, these trees receive none of it. “When people ask me ‘What it relies on?’ Well, it’s just Greece, he says. The weather, Greece’s terrain and that’s it – we get the result.”
The Only Operation of Its Kind
Professor Prokopios Magiatis, associate professor of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, has tested around 40,000 olive oil samples over three decades. He heads up testing for high phenolic olive oils worldwide, processing 7,000 samples annually at the University of Athens and University of California, Davis. According to Karavitis, Magiatis has confirmed something remarkable about The Wild Olive’s operation.
“He has reassured me time and time again that we are the only ones producing self-pollinated wild olive oil at this scale,” says Karavitis. “People might have a few wild trees on their farms, but an operation like this? He’s never seen it. We’re the only one in the world.”
Professor Prokopios Magiatis
The scale is made possible through an unprecedented arrangement. While Karavitis’ family has owned olive groves in southern Greece for generations, expansion required something more. After COVID, as demand surged, he successfully pitched to the Greek government for a 100-year lease to harvest wild olive trees on protected mountain land.
“We had to pitch – and obviously pitching to any government is difficult,” he acknowledges. “But these trees just sit here and they’re a medicine. We want to show the world that Greece has got an abundance of natural remedies and beauties just sitting there and no one’s really doing anything with them.”
Greek agricultural and forestry authorities prohibit mountain cultivation without special permission, a regulation that also applies to mountain tea (tsai tou vounou). The 100-year lease gives The Wild Olive the legal rights to turn wild olive harvesting into a viable business.
“When Professor Magiatis says that we are the only people producing the oil as a business, it’s because we’ve been able to legally secure the rights to do so,” Karavitis explains.
Two Oils, Two Purposes
The Wild Olive produces two distinct products, each with its own Greek name and purpose. The first is agriélaio, or wild olive oil, a medicinal oil harvested from self-pollinated wild trees scattered across the mountains of Greece, trees born not by farmers but by birds, weather and time. The second is agourélaio, an early-harvest extra virgin olive oil pressed from ancient cultivated trees, some dating back to before Christ, designed as a finishing culinary oil.
When Karavitis first launched the business, Australians struggled to understand the distinction between the two. “The only way I could explain it was to compare it to honey,” he says. “There’s everyday honey, and then there’s manuka honey – you don’t usually put it on your toast. Most people take it medicinally because of the strong, bitter, antioxidant taste. That’s the same with our wild olive oil.”
The wild agriélaio, with its remarkably high polyphenol content, is taken medicinally, one tablespoon a day. The agourélaio, pressed from trees that were standing when Christ walked the earth, is used for cooking and finishing dishes. “That is a finishing culinary oil,” says Karavitis.
The medicinal properties are not merely traditional wisdom. To receive an EU health claim, olive oil must contain at least 350 milligrams per kilogram of polyphenols. The Wild Olive’s wild oil contains 2,000 milligrams.
“So that’s six times higher than the minimum content required for a European Union health claim,” he notes. “That’s not me saying it. That’s what the professors and the doctors say.”
The Mediterranean Diet and Blue Zones
The health benefits of high phenolic olive oil are central to the Mediterranean diet’s reputation for promoting longevity, particularly in the Blue Zones such as Ikaria and the Peloponnese. Karavitis is emphatic about olive oil’s role. “The rule of thumb for longevity, as people in the Blue Zones say, is the Mediterranean diet,” he explains. “And to follow that diet properly, 75 per cent of it is Greek extra virgin olive oil.”
He dismisses the notion of following a Mediterranean diet without proper olive oil. “If you say you follow the Mediterranean diet but don’t use extra virgin olive oil, then you’re not actually following it.”
For high phenolic olive oil specifically, experts recommend two to three tablespoons daily. Karavitis, it may seem, far exceeds that. “I have it for breakfast, it’s in my lunch, it’s in my dinner. I’ll snack with it. It’s a superfood.”
Generational Knowledge Meets Modern Science
The medicinal benefits of olive oil are not news to Karavitis. He grew up hearing about them from both sides of his Greek Australian family, who maintained olive groves in southern Greece for generations. His grandfather’s routine was particularly memorable.
“My pappou grew up in Mani, where some of the groves are now,” he recalls. “He had his own stone olive press, and he told me: ‘Every day I would put my head under the press and drink one cup of extra virgin olive oil’.”
A whole cup. Daily. Then his grandfather would run his fingers through the remaining oil and style his hair with it. The family used olive oil as body lotion. Despite working two jobs, raising three children, surviving two World Wars and the Greek Civil War, immigrating to Australia and chain-smoking for 20 years, his grandfather lived to 93.
“If my pappou was here today, he would say three things: ‘Oil, oil, oil, honey, honey, honey. And at night, if I’m feeling a bit stressed, I have a bit of cognac.’ Swore by it. And he lived to 93 years old.”
The family’s traditional remedies extended to childhood ailments. When the children experienced constipation for just one example, they would turn to an old wife’s tale. “We’d rub olive oil on the tummy, which is an old wife’s tale, but it works.”
Growing up, extra virgin olive oil was so scarce in Australia that the family had to purchase it from chemists. “When we came out to Australia, we had to go to a chemist to buy extra virgin olive oil, and it wasn’t the best. But that’s the only place they could find it, in a chemist.”
Breaking New Ground in Australia
When Karavitis began talking about polyphenol content in olive oil seven or eight years ago, the concept was foreign to Australian consumers. “When I started this business, in Australia, no one was talking about medicinal polyphenol content in extra virgin olive oil. They couldn’t, because Australia doesn’t produce that sort of level of medicinal olive oil,” he says.
Australian olive oils, while much improved in recent years, cannot match the medicinal levels produced in Europe due to landscape and weather differences. “I’m not normally like this, but I’ve self-proclaimed that I’m the first one who started talking about high phenolic content olive oils in Australia. And it’s been a tough slog.”
The landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years. “The last two years, especially after COVID, social media has exploded with everybody talking about high phenolic olive oil and how many health benefits it provides, from doctors to people like Brian Johnson.”
Brian Johnson is among the loudest voices in the global longevity movement — a former tech entrepreneur who bills himself as the healthiest person on the planet and has made it his mission to halt, or even reverse, ageing. After selling his mobile payments company to PayPal, he began spending more than $2 million a year on a medically supervised regimen designed to test whether a person can age backwards. He is the subject of Netflix’s new documentary Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, and his own “longevity olive oil” has gone viral among his millions of followers.
Yet despite the hype, Karavitis remains unequivocal. “I’ve bought it. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t compare,” he says. Johnson’s oil, which arrives in Australia at around $90 a bottle, contains roughly 600 milligrams of polyphenols per kilogram.
By contrast, The Wild Olive’s wild agriélaio measures 2,000 milligrams per kilogram — more than three times higher.
“It was a decent oil. But if you compare it to something like our wild olive oil, it doesn’t even compare. It’s not even on the same planet.”
Organic Growth
Interestingly – perhaps even poetically – the business has grown organically, much like the wild olive groves themselves. Karavitis initially focused on e-commerce to maintain healthy margins, with no intention of entering the restaurant market, until word of mouth changed everything.
Ambassador for the brand Calombaris, began as a customer. When his chef from Gazi reached out about the oil for a Sydney pop-up, it opened unexpected doors. “His chef from Gazi reached out and said, ‘Mate, can you give us a price on your oil? Your five-litre tins look amazing and taste great – we’ve tried them.’ And from there, without planning to, I’ve been able to enter the restaurant market organically.”
Chef Peter Conistis, known as the godfather of modern Greek cuisine in Australia and a former council member of the Australian Olive Oil Association, had a similarly immediate response. “As soon as he tasted it, he said, ‘I need this oil in my restaurants.’ There was no two ways about it.”
The restaurant partnerships have been made viable by the inflated olive oil market. Prices have increased 60 per cent over five years, and while orchard prices have softened, retail prices remain high. By selling directly to restaurants rather than through distributors, Karavitis can offer competitive pricing for a superior product. “I’ve been able to say, I’ll match the price and I’ll give you a product that’s five times better than you’re getting now.”
A Fire That Burns
The Wild Olive was never built for profit. Karavitis runs other ventures that pay the bills, but none of them ignite him in the same way. “Do I utterly enjoy those businesses? Do they wake me up in the morning? Do they drive me? Absolutely not,” he says.
The shift came when he lost his father at 26. “Although a piece of me died, a piece of me was born,” he reflects. “I grew up with Dad teaching me about Greece – the politics, religion, what it meant to be Greek, the history, all of it. When he passed away, there was this fire in me, this burning question: how am I going to find a connection with Greece that is going to stay with me for the rest of my life?”
That search led him back to the olive groves his family had tended for generations. Faith, politics and heritage still mattered, but the trees offered something much deeper – a living link to his father, to his grandparents, to the land itself. “It’s given me a business I never thought would become a business,” he says. “It’s given me a connection with family, with the motherland.”
The passion is unmistakable. “It’s literally fulfilling my soul. And I’m not saying that in a corny way. I genuinely love what I’m doing. I’ve got a fire in me now.”
The generational dimension sits at the heart of it. “Olive oil has been in my family for years, and it’s hit me – I want to do what my dad didn’t do. I want to make it a business. I want to take it to the world.”
He often imagines how his grandfathers would react if they could see the groves now, their trees bottled and sent around the world. “If they were alive today and they saw what I was doing with their olive trees, they’d be like, what’s this? It’s un-dreamable stuff, really.”
The business now exports to London and the United States, with interest coming from Dubai and Canada. The new harvest is on its way to Australia, with wild olive oil and 500-millilitre early harvest bottles arriving within weeks. Five-litre tins from the previous harvest remain in stock.
Perhaps most remarkably, the entire enterprise has unfolded with the same natural inevitability as that ancient bird dropping a single olive pit on a Greek mountainside two millennia ago. The collaborations with Calombaris and Conistis, the international expansion, the recognition from Professor Magiatis, all of it happened organically.
“Greece’s olive oil is the best in the world. I knew that before my products and before my brand,” Karavistis says with characteristic passion.
And now he is simply sharing that truth with everyone else.
Just as a lone bird once carried an olive pit into the mountains, his work now carries Greece’s oldest trees into the hands of a new generation.
The Wild Olive is available at discoverthewildolive.com
Read also It’s Not Goodbye, It’s See You Later: George Calombaris Closes Gazi Sydney and Plans His Next Chapter
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Natalie Martin
Editor in Chief
Natalie Martin is editor and journalist at Greek City Times, specialising in writing feature articles and exclusive interviews with Greek personalities and celebrities. Natalie focuses on bringing authentic stories to life and crafting compelling narratives. Her talent for storytelling and compassionate approach to journalism ensure that every article connects with readers around the world.