Agricultural Cooperative Partnership Mirabello Union S.A.

Mirabello, located in Lasithi in Crete, is well known for its landscape and the magnificent shores. Given the touristic value of the area, farmers tend to be less dependent on olive trees for their income, creating thus a common for the Greek island socio-economic mixture, that threatens productive land with abandonment.

The Union of Cooperatives of Mirabello created in 1933 struggles to fight this trend, as olive growing is practically the only agricultural activity in the area, and the Union’s sole activity is the olive oil’s production and trading. To that effect Mirabello has been the 1st organization in Crete established an accredited panel test for olive oil’s quality. During the last years Mirabello has participated with 22 olive oil producers in LC Assessment in order to give added value in the extra virgin olive produced and to get certification of Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) from a Swedish certification body (www.environdec.com). Today its agronomist Mrs. Malliaraki S. is member of the technical secretariat of the standard PFCR for olive oil.

Fortunately, a relatively small number of dedicated olive growers support the Union in its effort to wake up people’s interest in the olive crop. Since 2005, an EMS has been established by the Union in order to help the organization of primary production and create arguments for the differentiation of the product, especially the kind of arguments that could be interesting for the customers of the touristic business. The farmers group that support the environmental approach for differentiation have taken serious efforts during the last 2 years to promote their olive oil on the grounds of its environmental performance as this is depicted on the EPD which includes a whole host of environmental indicators. Finally, Mirabello was participated in a volunteer bases in LIFESAGE10 and is beneficiary of LIFEoLIVECLIMA.

Website:  http://www.easm.gr/