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A girl who left Vilnius a year and a half ago and settled in a foreign country was left without a job after the virus broke out, but still did not want to return to Lithuania, O. Maldžiūnaitė told news portal tv3.lt.
PHOTO GALLERY. Onė Maldžiūnaitė
“I went to do an internship, I was at the company for 6 months, I really liked everything here, so we agreed with the employer that I would stay as an employee. A month later, a pandemic broke out and I immediately lost my job. “I had to think about what to do next, because I didn’t want to leave, I like the climate, the architecture, the ocean, the way of life,” said the interlocutor.
The couple chose the business themselves.
The girl does not hide her resentment that she, who works with fashion and her photographer boyfriend, did not need anyone in the first months of the pandemic: the work stopped completely.
But now One is happy: the pandemic has benefited her and her boyfriend. After losing his job, he didn’t give up, and the business idea was born after he left to safely quarantine at a friend’s house. The girl laughs that it was not they who chose the business, but the business chose them.
“When the pandemic started, we went to town to stay safe in the boy’s house. Olives grow there and he has been harvesting the harvest for several years, selling it to friends and distributing it to his family. While we were there, we thought we could do something with that. . Phainesnium, who would be interested in us ”, – the girl remembers the birth of the business.
Yes, running the virus, in December 2020, his brand “Cuxo” was born. The couple started producing organic olive oil from the olive trees that grow on the boy’s farm, which they cultivate with their own hands, they always come to see them and do the necessary work. True, all work moves in stages: most work in spring and fall, and in summer all you need to do is maintain the irrigation system. And the couple pick the olives themselves with the help of those around them.
“November is harvest time, everything has to be done in three days. Those who are elected on the first day can no longer be elected. With the help of friends, neighbors and employees, we harvested all the olives, ”said O. Maldžiūnaitė.
When asked what the size of the farm is, One laughs: she doesn’t know herself and the olive trees grow on the hillside, so their density is a bit different. However, about 150 liters of olive oil are extracted from a harvest. As she says herself, it’s not a big deal, but for starters, before the business takes over, that’s totally enough.
Faced with challenges during a pandemic
In the future, the couple would like to buy olives from the neighbors who live in the neighboring hamlets, but the road still seems long: “We have plans to buy olives from the neighbors later, to help them because the continent is very old, the people do not want to move and young people do not work.
It would be fun for us to help the surrounding neighbors to buy them olives, but we are not doing it yet because we should help them become organic farms, which is probably difficult for them to understand why to do it, because there is more work for them. mowing the grass instead of spraying it. “
It is true that the couple still do not have the necessary equipment for oil pressure, although they dream a lot about it. However, it is now necessary to transport the olives to another company, where they are pressed and later stored in their own facilities, for an appropriate fee. The girl emphasizes that she avoids plastic: she wants everything to be sustainable and respectful with the environment.
Thus was born a very important detail of the brand: a porcelain bottle of exclusive design, whose prototype One created with her boyfriend with her own hands.
“Appearance is very important to our brand. We don’t just sell. oil, but also an elegant reusable container that can be kept at home for a long time, either to pour vinegar or another oil or to fill it with us, ”said the interlocutor.
The bottles are manufactured in the factory and the works are there, it is just not clear if the works fit a pandemic or the Portuguese pace of life: “It is very slow a couple of weeks to a few months. There are Portuguese rhythms where everyone says I’ll do it right away, but it takes a long time, I can’t plan much, many things go their own way and the dates are not predicted. “
The works are approaching, the assortment is filled
Due to the lack of bottles, the sales also stand out, so you can’t go to the stores because you don’t have a product to offer. One laughs that it will probably be another year before I begin to understand how things are going and start ordering bottles half a year early.
“We both like to do everything from start to finish and maybe we couldn’t have done otherwise. We also like to pick the olives ourselves, respond to letters, take pictures of the products, and create the bottle design ourselves. Now we try very hard, we don’t have much feedback and we are still in the air, ”said the girl.
However, the couple will not give up: the business is launching new products. Now the latest product to appear is massage oil blends and olive leaf tea. That tea was new to O. Maldžiūnaitė herself, but she says its benefits are immeasurable.
“I, as a Lithuanian, did not know those things, but olive leaf tea is one of the best medicines for high cholesterol, high blood pressure. It acts as an antioxidant, just like olive oil. Olive leaves do not contain caffeine, so you can drink them at any time of the day. The taste is very neutral, between green tea and light herbs. We make a mixture with nothing and another with pieces of figs, which also grow on our farm ”.
When the couple decided to produce organic olive oil, it became interesting what its benefits were. It seems like you could talk about it endlessly, there are many positive qualities.
“It just came to our knowledge then. Their taste and characteristics are different from those in which olives are harvested, which can be very ripe or quite green. Fewer liters are squeezed from the vegetables, but they have much better health properties.
Antioxidants are one of the most important properties of the oil, but it also has vitamins. It also rejuvenates: it stops many aging processes, not only in terms of skin or appearance, but also in the body. “
The pandemic is gone forever
When asked if she was not afraid to start a business during a pandemic, the girl firmly says that there was nothing to fear and that she also did not want to wait: Otherwise, we would have had to wait, because even now we do not know when it will all end. , and we don’t want to wait and do nothing. We saw the pandemic as an opportunity, not a brake. Other work stopped, so we were able to reflect on our lives and see what we really wanted. “
Although the business is not developing as fast as you would like, the interlocutor is happy: there are more advantages than disadvantages, and the benefits of working for you are already being felt.
“For me and the boy, the pandemic is going well, I am very happy that I do not have more standard work hours, doing what I want. I find myself most productive working up to 8 hours a day. In fact, it didn’t go as well as you would have liked, but I doubt it would have gone better without the pandemic (Serie). Everything was done naturally, of course, very slow, but perhaps well: slow work often protects against mistakes, ”said O. Maldžiūnaitė.
The interviewee also has advice for other people who dream of starting a business but are hesitant. Most girls emphasize that there is no right time to start; it may never come, because there will be endless reasons why you should take and do.
When it comes to the food business, One is convinced that the future is in organic food.
“I highly recommend that you look for different ways, because the further away, the more everyone cares about what they eat. Of course, not the absolute majority, but people understand that health is important. I would encourage organic farms, because it seems to me that the future is organic food ”, the interlocutor shares.
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