Moments through food with Emily Cuddeford

This interview was conducted by Emily Cuddeford of our favourite Edinburgh bakery and long-time collaborator Twelve Triangles. 

You can follow Emily's Substack here. 

A conversation with Juli, one of the founders of Honest toil, producing cold pressed Koroneki olive oil in the Peloponnese. We talk about community, the rhythm of nature and of course olive oil.

Where our food comes from….

How it’s made, the people who make it, this subject is at the core of me. In this newsletter, as well as recipes and stories from my life, I want to discuss more about the origins of our food and who’s producing it. Bringing you voices from other incredible people in food and farming. I’m nervous for this conversation with Juli, also writing this newsletter. I have never interviewed someone before. I am not even sure that’s what I want this to be but everyone has to start somewhere and i’m putting my big girl pants on.

One of my greatest hopes for improving our food systems, is the more we share, support and champion each other, the greater understanding people will have of the work which goes into producing our food. The real human and animal cost, as well as the cost to our land and planet. This isn’t just a chat with Juli, this is the beginning of finding a voice, creating a series of conversations, a way of communicating these ideas to you. An idea that perhaps, one of the most powerful and politically radical things we can do, is use our money to show those in power what we care about. To make choices, not always shopping at a supermarket or large chain restaurants, coffee shops and takeaways, this rewards food systems which are ultimately harming us and the environment. Try a market or an independent shop, choose who’s pocket your money ends up in, think about what they might use it for. I understand that cost is one of the most important factors about where we shop, how we choose our food. That it is a privilege to be able to care about these issues, that not many can afford. The food system in this country is inherently broken, it will never be fixed if we don’t talk about it and I intend to do that here, I hope you will join me.

Juli & Tom at the press. Photo by Sarah Rainer

I’m sitting in my office, cookbooks surrounding me in haphazard stacks, notebooks scattered across my desk, no pens anywhere to be found. I have scheduled a call with Juli, one of the founders of Honest Toil alongside her partner Tom. This is for us to finally have a face to face conversation about life, running a Buisness, a family and caring for / finding a space in a community. When we finally connect over a very stuttering and laggy video connection, she tells me they are currently in the middle of a storm. Not what I imagined for them on their olive grove on the Peloponnese, my visions of Greece are sun scorched, sharp blue waters and dusky green from the groves. Their littlest one is home poorly from nursery, so Tom will be looking after them whilst we talk. All of this is familiar to me, sick rosey cheeked children, unreliable weather and internet connections (we lived off 4G for the first 3 years in the steading, broadband didn’t exist in our field), we are small business owners and this is just a normal Monday.

A brief introduction to Honest Toil

I first discovered Honest Toil in January 2023 after spotting their Olive oil on the shelves of another bakery (e5 in London). A lot of my time is spent searching for new producers for twelve triangles, cultivating these pivotal relationships, making sure we are the right fit. It has become one of the most important aspects of my work, getting to know farmers, understanding how and why they work the way they do, how we as a business can then support them. I want to make sure when you choose to spend money with us, not only are you getting something delicious. Your money is going to support the people who care for the land and animals around us. Our debut cookbook Kitchen Table is one big love letter to these producers, there is of course a chapter on Honest toil in there alongside a selection of recipes to make the most of their oil.

Juli and Tom never set out to build a brand or an olive oil business. They have eased and expanded into this venture and life, like the gentle softening and give of leather in the perfectly fitting shoe; creating something that reflects their values. Honest Toil is built from a love of the land, the traditions and the people who live there. They talk about their business as a “small collaborative project” bringing local small-scale olive growers together. Their aim is to support the Messinian harvest, using traditional techniques to produce olive oil using only Koroneiki olives. Importantly never blending or filtering, producing a unique, seasonal oil. They bottle or can everything on the island, ensuring the benefit comes to the people around them. Finally distributing it in the most sustainable way, for example in Juli’s home town of Budapest, they deliver oil around the city through a network of cargo bikes.

In the groves. Photo by Sarah Rainer.

How it all began.

Juli talks with childish excitement about the wonderment and pure joy her and Tom felt the first time they tasted oil straight from the press. They have been chasing that first high and flavour since then, Honest Toil comes from the desire to share that moment with others. They live in the groves, working alongside the trees, learning from the communities they have become part of. Juli is originally from Hungary and Tom from the UK, they have also lived in Berlin, now they live in Greece. They use their oil to connect all of these places, a map of their history and relationships; cooks, bakers, artists and food lovers all bought together. Growing the collective of people who become part of Honest Toil’s story.

The tentative roots for Honest Toil began when Tom’s parents moved to Kyparissia in the Western Peloponnese of Greece. Here Juli tells me that every house and piece of land comes with olive groves, it is the life blood which runs through their communities. It is impossible to live here and not work with olives or at the very least produce the oil for your own family. The rhythm of the Peloponnese is dictated by the olive groves, the beat which marks the passing of the seasons, everything else is in relation to that. Conversations revolve around olives and the groves, are you going to harvest yet? do you wait a little longer? which press are you going to? When will the rain come? There are multiple presses in the Peloponnese. Once the olives are harvested, you take them straight to the press, here they are turned into oil the same day. Juli refers to it as olive juice, a proper cold pressed unfiltered olive oil, is pure peppery, grassy green, unadulterated olive. When Tom’s parents moved there, they found themselves amongst the groves for the first time, learning about these fruits and olive oil production. They began going to local tavernas to talk and learn about all things olive, this is where their journey began.

The technical bit, the process of harvesting and making olive oil.

In their home just south of Kyparissia in Messinia they grow Koroneiki olives, this is a small variety of olive used purely for oil. They grow next to the Kalamata olives and have a symbiotic relationship, aiding pollination between trees. Kalamata olives are mainly used as table olives, once they have been brined they are often preserved in Koroneiki olive oil, continuing their relationship to your table, even once they have left the groves.

Koroneiki olives are best when harvested young, they have a brighter grassier flavour. The olives will still be green, they turn a deep purpley black as the season develops. They contain a higher concentration of polyphenols when harvested at the start of the season (season runs from the end October to December). By harvesting these olives early you get a smaller yield of oil around 14% instead of the later 20%, the flavour and nutrition of these earlier olives is far superior. Before harvesting can begin you need rain and ideally a lot of it, this will give the olives a final plumping before the harvest. Juli tells me there is a constant balancing with nature, to not leave them too long on the trees so they ripen, but to let them get the rain they so desperately need. This year they have had an unseasonably early harvest starting at the end of October, after a hot, dry summer quickly followed by rain.

Juli and Tom harvest their olives manually with what looks like a spinning plastic claw, this is hoisted proud above their heads tangling into the ancient olive trees. Gently coaxing and knocking the olives from the branches until they shower down upon them, landing on netting laid over the ground. They sift through the fallen olives by hand, pulling the larger twigs and leaves away from their precious cargo.

Picking and sorting the Koroneiki olives at harvest time. Photos by Sarah Rainer

The olives travel only a few miles to the local press, becoming oil within a matter of hours from leaving the tree.

When the olives reach the press they are crushed and turned into a paste including the pips. The oil is then extracted keeping the temperature below 28c so as not to damage the polyphenols within the oil. It only takes an hour – an hour and a half to turn their olives into oil, many just standing at the press, waiting to see what this years harvest will taste like.

The community of production

Olive oil production is a collaboration between family, friends and community in Messinia. When the rains have come and the olives are ready, the region comes alive. The sound of generators and laughter as people rush to get their olives picked, then turned into their precious green juice for the year. This is the spirit of community and common good, nothing to waste, everyone to help. Whether it is each family pressing their olives which they will use for the year, or those who will sell it on to make a living. I can’t help but be jealous of this sense of purpose and drive, for a whole community to produce one item over a matter of weeks. It is not often this type of community collaboration is seen or appreciated in our modern world. It has mostly been squeezed from our language, in our constant desire for everything to be available at all times, a homogenised society and food system where there is little space for the individual.

The need and character of that little olive is paramount in Messinia, whether it is to be picked earlier than usual due to the rains or in fact needs a little longer. It may be that the yield is lower, or flavour different, with Honest Toil they will not hide this, they only sell pure olive oil from each new season. All these differing factors we have discussed cause huge manufactures to blend oils, harvest later and process at higher heat. They also add left over oil from previous harvests to maximise their volumes. This is all to make money, the pay off for saving money, is bland, nutrient low oils. We can choose to reject this, to go for the unknown and ever changing seasonal artisan product, to support nature. It may not be the same every time, but it will always intrigue and teach you. What more can we ask for from our food or indeed life.

At the press. Photos by Sarah Rainer

I love the photos and videos Juli and Tom have from their days at the press, locals with their old labelless water bottles, held straight under the tap, desperate for their first taste of the new harvest. This almost offensively lurid, neon green oil pumping straight out from the press. I am delighted that Juli and Tom have been so warmly welcomed by the local community, they have sensitively worked amongst them, learning Greek, integrating into the community with their family, promoting the beauty and importance of the land and the olives of Messinia. They don’t sell their oil in Greece, there is no need, Juli says they don’t want to take business away from the locals. They choose to champion the Koroneiki Olive and its gorgeous oil further afield, challenging peoples perceptions of Olive oil, teaching them its an everyday delight.

The importance of expression, the future and climate change.

Many of the people I come across in small food businesses come with some kind of arts or creative background, as both Juli and Tom do. I studied fine art in Brighton before beginning twelve triangles and my food career. From looking at Honest Toil, I can tell that design and connection are important to them. Their packaging is designed by multiple artists, working on differently scaled bottles and cans, yet it is all recognisable as being part of Honest Toil. They bring the spirit of collaboration through their entire business, from working at the press alongside growers, to finding artists to collaborate with, then chefs and bakers to create recipes using their oil. This is a constant thread weaved through the business, making it recognisably theirs, no matter where you come across it. They work with artists that they respect from all over the world, creating works of art based on the soul of Messinia and its oil to be bought into your kitchen, giving you access to this beauty in your everyday, bringing the spirit of the groves into your home.

When discussing the future of Honest Toil I ask, how do you decide if you should scale up? can you stay still? or in staying still do you in fact fall behind? Juli says they are happy where they are, they don’t want to grow at this point, but they do want to thrive. They currently have a sustainable business which keeps them in Messinia, allowing summers in Hungary, this works for their family. They manage the work load mainly themselves, only bringing on help from family members recently. Due to the choice of working with local growers, they don’t have the extra pressure of having to deal with more land, groves or staff. As with all small businesses just now, there is no luxury of staying still and Juli recognises this. We are all fighting to stay relevant in ever saturated markets with customers who have very little money to spend. It is the ‘thriving’ which is becoming ever challenging.

We land in the quagmire of social media, this constant demand to promote and sell ourselves, to always give more. The big question for me is, how much of your life do you owe your business in the hopes of making it a success? The complexity of this is also intensified when your Buisness and life intertwine so completely. I struggle with this constantly. Work is my life, now Charlie and Iain are also my life. Pulling the two of them apart, trying to keep them separate I find nigh impossible. This push and pull of my time is enough without the increasing demands of algorithms to be ever active. I ask Juli how they manage this, what they feel they need to give in order to stay current. She says they work on trying to stay relevant to keep people engaged.

Their social media is awash with colours, flavours and experiences from all the voices in their network. Juli runs multiple series on their Instagram collaborating with others using their oil as the foundation. This is interspersed with their life in the groves and at the press. I have added recipes to their Instagram when asked, alongside some fabulous cooks from around Europe. This feels like a more sustainable way to be engaging, to work with others so the sole responsibility is not on your shoulders, it doesn’t become stale. It feels vibrant and a reflection of their life and their oil, you can immerse yourself in the life of Messinia.

A peach, almond & olive cake I made for Honest Toils Instagram sweet series. You can find the recipe on their instagram page, alongside some wonderful others.

One of the biggest battles they and all farmers face right now is the very real impact of climate change. Juli says there is a distinct change in the unreliability of the harvest, the pests on the crops they now contend with are far worse than when they began. The growers are facing an ever unreliable landscape and future, right now they help each other, share techniques which are helping their trees, mitigating pests, but there is a very real concern that climate change will irrevocably shift their lives and livelihoods beyond this point. In farming specifically with crops, there are always good and bad years, nature isn’t a constant but it is becoming more unreliable by the year. A farmer can no longer be certain that a bad year will actually be followed by a good. As consumers we need to readjust our expectations. It is only with the recent industrialisation of food that we expect everything to be available, seven days a week, fifty two weeks of the year, to look and taste the same.

Olive oil is at its peak straight after pressing, its life from there is a slow dimming of flavour and nutrition. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use and enjoy it all year round, merely that we adjust our expectations of flavour and uniformity, it is a natural, unpreserved living thing. I hope that we learn to embrace the uniqueness of our ingredients. That not all vegetables are the same shape and size, an ingredient doesn’t stay tasting the same its whole shelf life, baked goods aren’t meant to live in plastic packets unchanged for months or even years. This is not nature, food lives, it decomposes, you should be suspicious if it doesn’t.

There is a laid back, concise quality to Juli as she talks, everything is matter of fact, with not too much questioning. I don’t often come across this confidence in someone, especially a woman. I believe it comes from truly believing in what you are doing, you inherently know that what you are doing is right.

We end our conversation as children and business beckons us both. It could have kept going. I would love to learn more, the specifics of how the press works, i’m intrigued by the business and decisions which drive them. I could spend hours listening to the stories of life in Messinia and how they find it with their children. How they balance being a couple in Business, the worries of climate change and the future. This has been a quick peak behind the curtain of life on the Peloponnese.

I hope you have enjoyed this conversation, I am out of my comfort zone writing about this, so apologies if there is waffle. As I said at the start, I spend a lot of time thinking about growers and producers, where our food comes from and what that should mean to us. This is my first time opening a conversation to explore this with others, to shed light on the amazing work people are doing in growing our food, how vital it is we support them. Understanding the difficulties they face, trying to shift our perspective of what food has become and our expectations. I hope you will join me on this journey and that you have a great week. As always please share this with someone you think might be interested and comment with your own thoughts.

Thank you.

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