Three years ago we decided that we’d had enough of the seemingly endless bad weather and the constant stream of bills through the door in the UK that took so much pleasure out of life. Our kids had grown up and fled the nest. It was now or never!

After the most traumatic of life laundries we packed what we hadn’t sold or given away into a small van, pointed it at the English channel and just kept driving. We’d no idea of where we were going to end up and in fact had only holidayed in France outside of the UK so had little idea of where might be nice. One thing was for sure, we didn’t want to end up in a British enclave in Spain where you could get Tetley’s and Sunday lunch every day.

We just kept on going until, in the end, we’d almost run out of Europe when we landed up in Sitia, at the far eastern end of Crete, (Brit population about 15. English speakers amongst the locals about 20)

It’s an interesting place. Cut off from the rest of Crete by daunting mountains it’s never been a holiday hotspot. The entire local community, descended from the Minoans who lived here and found refuge here 4000 years ago, is devoted to the growing of “koroneiki” variety olive trees for oil. Surrounded by the sea, in the hottest and driest part of Europe, the oil produced is absolutely unique. Sitia oil, produced by the local co-operative of farmers, wins award after award at international competitions for olive oil.

Needless to say, we plunged our very little all of capital into olive groves, rented a small place to live, started to learn Cretan dialect Greek, and luxuriated in the 1950’s style of crime free, treat a foreigner as a friend and guest , unhurried way of life. Until we found out just how hard it is to farm olives!

Most of the oil from here goes to Italy, Germany and France and it’s virtually unknown in the UK. Some time ago we decided to redress that balance and try to get the oil to the U K, in a bottle which cried out to the consumer that hey, you may not have heard of our oil, but see what awards we’ve won, so pick up this bottle! We decided to name the oil after the hamlet where our trees (many 300 or more years old) are situated, and so “Saint Spiridon” was born.

Being a little bit anti big business, we decided to seek area agents in the UK who would introduce our oil to delis and other quality food retailers rather that use big wholesalers who are probably rich enough as it is. The simplest way to persuade a retailer to stock a product is to offer say 6 bottles on a sale or return basis, then to supply thereafter cash on delivery We’re extra confident that once tried, sales will be excellent and very consistent and that our labels will attract customers straight away.

We’ve become members and are now accredited suppliers on the lists of the “Guild of Fine Food”, the member organisation that serves the delicatessen trade and for the UK will feature their gold sticker in addition to the other awards on the bottle.

We ask interested parties to invest in the stock they’ll need to get started, around £3,000. If sales are as we expect this should generate an income of circa £600-£800 a week after around three months in a cash -on -delivery business with very little in the way of sales expertise or business management skills required.

John’s comment: This was a guest post by Anne and Peter who own and run www.saintspiridon.com. After they sent me this guest post I asked Anne and Peter to provide a little more detail regarding their business opportunity and what you get for your investment of £3,000. Here’s what they had to say.

The £3,000 covers stock (circa £2,800 depending on the euro/pound exchange rate).

Similar oil to our own retails in Somerfields at £8.99 and this is the retail price we recommend to end sellers/retailers (delicatessens and other fine food retailers.) The price we supply at allows the distributor to sell at £6 per bottle to the retailer, thus allowing the retailer to obtain 50 % mark up. Supplying a case of twelve would therefore bring a margin (gross) of £21.60.(In stock terms we supply 56 cases of 12 bottles. The cost per bottle to the distributor is circa £4.20 per bottle).

Our idea is that the distributor calls on retailers and offers 6 bottles on sale or return. We are very confident that the oil will sell at the rate of 6-9 bottles per week per outlet, more as customers return and re-purchase (we’re that confident of the quality of our oil!). So, if the distributor finds, for example, 50 retailers over a three month period he/she will be delivering 25-38 cases per week (at sales of 6-9 bottles per week per retailer). 25 x 21.60 gives a gross margin of £540, 38 x £21.60 gives £820.

We previously ran a business in the UK which ran on similar lines. Our experience was that small independent retailers will give shelf space if the product comes on sale or return and looks good (which we think the awards shown on our bottles prove). Once in place, we believe the product will sell for the following reason: There is a market for better quality olive oils but many buyers do not really know what they are buying and seek reassurance from the labelling. We’ve deliberately gone all out to offer such reassurance. Plus the end retail price is tempting in this market, where some oils sell for silly money and yet have won no awards.

In terms of the sort of person who will succeed with our business really the only qualification required is the ability to get out and about into retailers and some level of persuasiveness or personality to encourage the retailer to give it a go. The only costs involved are petrol expenses, some business cards and a phone (plus they need a garage to store a pallet or two of stock).It’s a simple and quite pleasant business, we believe. Later this year we will launch an organic brand (extending the number of outlets available to the distributor to include health food shops and "organic only" outlets and giving an extra string to existing retailers. Later we are to introduce a "fresh harvest unfiltered oil" and maybe olive oil soaps etc.

We will gladly offer sales advice and on the phone/ by email training to any that need it, plus a rundown of how to measure sales in order to maintain stock availability and any other business advice we can offer. We’ve no doubt that our distributors will become our friends,so we guess we’ll be entertaining them here in due course too. We hope so.

This was a guest post by Anne and Peter who can be contacted on cretedream@gmail.com or via their a website at www.saintspiridon.com.

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