Cretelia Oliveoil Asimi

History

  • 1935

    Coming from Asia Minor to the village of Apoini, Heraklion, Petros Valavanis establishes the first factory, one of the very first in the wider region of Messara, Crete.

  • 1966

    31 years later, Petros’ son, Nikolaos, settles in the village of Asimi with his family. There he sets up the first olive mill, which operates using the traditional method of presses.

  • 1970

    Δημήτρης Βαλαβάνης In the top right-hand corner you can see the current owner, Dimitris Valavanis.

  • 1970

    Νικόλαος Βαλαβάνης Next to him stands his father, Nikolaos.

  • 1979

    Modernization of the mill and installation of the first decanter centrifuge.

  • 1980

    Α second production unit for organic olive oil is installed in the mill, a groundbreaking step forward for the time. That is the beginning of the family's long tradition in the extraction and marketing of organic olive oil.

  • 2007
    Cretelia History

    Dimitrios Valavanis, son of Nikolaos, who has recently taken over the family business, moves to a full modernization of the olive mill to its present form in new premises. Two new state-of-the-art organic and conventional crop production units, as well as high capacity olive oil storage tanks, are installed.

  • 2017
    Cretelia History

    The company is entering the field of olive oil bottling by creating a state-of-the-art packaging facility in new premises near the mill, with the vision to promote Cretan olive oil using the experience and knowledge of all these years.