Organic Islands
Organic Islands
Organic Islands is a constantly growing, innovative company in the field of production and processing of organic aromatic and medicinal plants and herbs, with commercial presence in dozens of points of sale in Greece and abroad. The company was founded in 2010 on the island of Naxos and was the first company in Cyclades in this sector.
Our goal
Our main goal is the creation of organically certified high quality products, which will meet the requirements of the most challenging consumers both in Greece and abroad.
Being pioneers in our field, we combine tradition with modern technology to produce unique top quality products. The unique climate and soil, the clean environment that characterizes the island of Naxos and the mountains of northern Greece combined with our certified organic practices, guarantee top quality herbs, extremely rich in flavor and essential oils.
While accomplishing our productive and commercial goals, we constantly encourage local producers and firms to embrace organic farming. One of our greatest values from the beginning is cooperation with other producers on the common ground of organic farming as a way for development and enhancement of the efficiency of the production units in the primary and secondary sector of economy.
Production
The fact that Organic Islands has vertically integrated production processes, makes us capable of having complete control and responsibility for the quality of our products, from the initial planting of the herbs in our fields, until their final packaged form that consumers receive in their hands. At present we cultivate 100,000 square meters of privately owned fields with 16 species of herbs and citrus fruits, whereas for the processing and packaging our products we own two modern fully equipped units.
Certifications
Production at all stages is certified by independent organizations (DIO) and the company follows the procedures and practices that ensure the health and safety of its products, according to EN ISO 22000: 2005 standards.
Our base
The Productive basis of our firm is located on the island of Naxos in Cyclades and in semi-mountainous areas of the municipality of Paeonia in central Macedonia. At present we cultivate in 100,000 m2 13 species of aromatic and medicinal herbs and 3 species of citrus fruits that we use in our blends.
The criteria for selecting our species were their natural spread at similar climate and territorial environments, the location of our fields and the suitability of soils.
Our fields
The herbs we cultivate at present are Oregano (Origanum vulgaris hirtum), Sage (Salvia officinalis), Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), Thymeι (Thymus vulgaris), Mountain Tea (Sideritis Scardica), Mint (Mentha piperita), Lemon Verbena (Aloysia citrodora), Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea), Pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium), Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) and Hyssop (Hyssopus Officinalis), whereas the citrus species are orange trees, tangerine trees and lemon trees.
Processing
Harvesting, processing and packaging are carried out according to the best practices. The herbs are harvested exclusively by hand, in the suitable time period for each plant. Leaves and blossoms are dried within the same day in ideal conditions, so that they do not to lose their valuable bioactive substances.
Afterwards follows the processing stage, where we ensure the collecting of the desired parts of each plant with modern machinery and also the thorough cleaning of the final product at the desired size. After the last quality controls, packaging and storage are performed under controlled conditions in order to ensure optimised protection of the products.
All of our plants come from nursery with organic certification and our firm embodies at every step of production the criteria of EN ISO 22000:2005 Standard. Organic islands pursues the production of high quality products and therefore owns two units for processing and packaging fully equipped with custom-made machinery for drying, cleaning and packaging. We also have a distillery at the capacity of 600 litres.
