Hvar Gourmet, makers of premium organic olive oil used by some of Croatia’s best restaurants, seeks to develop direct-to-customer delivery from world-famous Hvar Island in order to achieve otherwise unavailable olive oil freshness

HVAR, Croatia — September 16th, 2016 — Ambitious foodie startup HVAR GOURMET announces that it is raising funds via crowdfunding platform KICKSTARTER in order to implement direct delivery of their premium, gourmet, small-batch olive oil. The company set out to raise €10,000 on Kickstarter to purchase bottling equipment (with €7,368 raised to date) so that they can begin direct delivery of premium olive oil, the freshness of which would be otherwise unavailable to customers.

Unlike wine, olive oil does not get better with age, and the closer you are to the pressing, the better the oil quality. This race against time underpins the urgency of Hvar Gourmet’s ambitious direct-to-customer delivery model. With traditional store bought oil, customers are left with ambiguous harvest dates and often stale oil (sometimes years out from the original harvest); with Hvar Gourmet, customers are guaranteed a superior fresh-taste experience.

Aside from the direct-delivery model, Hvar Gourmet offers a superior olive oil. There is a reason why it is the house olive oil of Hvar Island’s #1 restaurant, the world renowned Dalmatino. The lingering, black peppery taste of Hvar Gourmet’s oil (due in part to the characteristics of the regional Oblica olive and to a slightly earlier harvest) has gained it a dedicated following around the world. It has a pungent taste, low acidity, high levels of polyphenols (healthy antioxidants), and is 100% certified organic — everything you could ask for in an olive oil.

Lastly, the process of Hvar Gourmet’s olive oil production is a no holds barred gourmet oriented process. They obsessively run a business model that is focused on quality, not corner-cutting, and this has yielded them consistently high-quality results throughout the years. Some examples of the process:

  1. Olives picked in October. This is considered “early-harvest” and they have found it leads to consistently better tasting oil. The downside: less oil per kilo of olives compared to later harvests.
  2. They hand pick their olives. Machine harvesting and using nets on the ground can lead to bruising and premature oxidation of the olives, so they avoid this at all costs. They also NEVER use olives that have already fallen to the ground.
  3. They are 100% certified organic. All of their oil is HR-EKO-02 certified and they don’t use chemicals or sprays. What does this mean? Lots of manual work and lots of love.
  4. Their oil is cold-pressed at room temperature and is left raw and unfiltered.
  5. They bottle into attractive UV proof ceramic bottles, offering superior protection to the olive oil (which is easily damaged by UV rays) verses cheaper transparent glass alternatives.

For generations, the Milicic family has been making olive oil on Hvar Island, Croatia, which is incidentally also one of the most beautiful and frequented tourist destinations in Europe. For the last 10 years, the family has been refining their harvesting and olive pressing techniques with their family-owned mill and methodical lab testing. The result: an oil that is fresh, pungent, spicy, and packed with antioxidants.

Hvar Gourmet was set up in Hvar, Croatia in 2016 by international foodies Danica Milicic and her fiancee Tom Wessling as an outlet for their family’s olive oil and agriculture activities. It has enjoyed early traction with the success of its flagship Zmaj gourmand olive oil.

Media Contact:

Tom Wessling
Co-founder
Hvar Gourmet
+43 676 6402033
#Hvargourmet (Twitter, Facebook)

Email: Support@hvargourmet.com
Website: www.kickstarter.com
Youtube: youtu.be