500-year-old olive groves. Knowledge passed down for generations.

Alexandros Kladas and his family founded Folia to share the oil from their ancestors' groves.

His late father, Spyros Kladas, grew up on Corfu in a farming family and studied agriculture in Athens. For over 35 years he worked at the Olive Institute of Corfu – a pioneering institution for close-to-nature olive growing whose work included biological control of the olive fruit fly. The family's groves served as the Institute's research field, with weather stations and measurements of pests, diseases and soil.

His mother, Katerina Klada, also grew up in a farming family and learned as a child how to tend and harvest olive trees the traditional way – understanding the trees, reading the seasons, caring for the land with patience.

Today Alex and Katerina carry this knowledge forward: they tend the groves by hand, use no synthetic pesticides or fertilisers and harvest the traditional way – with a focus on healthy soil, biodiversity and healthy trees, so the groves are preserved for generations to come.

“True heritage is not just the land we inherit, but the responsibility to pass it on in even better condition.”