Discover the Unparalleled Quality of MANI Bläuel

The Mani is not easy country. Terraced groves cling to limestone slopes above the sea, holdings are small, and mechanisation is limited by the terrain itself. Those constraints shape the oil: hand-harvested Koroneiki olives, pressed cold at a maximum of 27°C, arriving at an acidity below 0.4%, well inside the 0.8% ceiling that defines extra virgin.

What makes MANI especially compelling is the structure behind the bottle. Around 300 small growers supply the mill, many of them since the earliest years, and the certifications cover both how the olives are grown and how the people growing them are treated.

What makes MANI Bläuel special

  • Greece’s first certified organic olive oil, delivered in 1991.
  • Hand-harvested Koroneiki olives from terraced groves in the Mani peninsula.
  • Cold pressed at a maximum of 27°C, with acidity below 0.4%.
  • Naturland Fair certification held since 2014, covering social as well as ecological standards.
  • Roughly 300 small growers supplying the mill, many partnered since the company’s early years.

The oil is fresh and mildly fruity, with aromas of almond, artichoke and wild herbs and a clean finish. It is an everyday oil in the best sense: good enough to finish a dish, gentle enough to cook with, and produced at a scale that makes it practical to use generously.

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The People Behind MANI Bläuel

The People Behind MANI Bläuel

Fritz and Burgi Bläuel founded the business in the Mani, in the southern Peloponnese, issuing their first invoice for locally pressed virgin olive oil on 12 June 1980. Their children, Felix Bläuel and Julia Löschenbrand-Bläuel, lead the company today, with Felix having joined the management in 2009.

The founding idea was not simply to sell Greek olive oil abroad. It was to build an organic supply chain in a region where organic certification did not yet exist, which meant convincing individual farmers, one grove at a time, to change how they worked.

How MANI Bläuel began

The first bottles were filled by hand in 1980. Six years later, in 1986, Fritz and Burgi began actively promoting organic cultivation among the smallholders around them, a slow process that required farmers to accept lower yields and a conversion period before any certification arrived.

That work produced its result in 1991, when the company delivered the first certified organic olive oil produced in Greece. The MANI Bläuel brand as it is known today was established in 2007, and Naturland Fair certification followed in 2014.

How MANI Bläuel began

Working with smallholders

The Mani is a landscape of small parcels. Very few families own enough trees to make a living from olives alone, which means the mill depends on assembling many small harvests rather than drawing on a single estate.

MANI built its model around that reality: long relationships with named growers, agreed prices, and the technical support required to keep organic certification in place year after year. A crowdfunding model introduced in 2019 helps finance growers making the transition to sustainable agriculture.

Why this matters

  • Around 300 small farmers supply the mill, many since the company’s beginnings.
  • Naturland Fair certification covers pricing and working conditions as well as ecology.
  • Organic conversion was funded and supported rather than simply demanded.
  • The mill runs on photovoltaic generation.
  • Over 75 people are employed in a region with limited alternative work.

“MANI Bläuel expresses the Mani peninsula through hand-harvested Koroneiki olives, long relationships with named growers, and an organic standard the region did not have before they built it.”

A Daily Ritual from the Peloponnese

Each MANI Bläuel bottle reflects the everyday food culture of the southern Peloponnese, where olive oil is not a garnish but the base of the cooking. It goes into the pan, over the salad, into the bread and onto the table at every meal.

  • Hand-harvested Koroneiki olives from terraced Mani groves
  • Cold pressed at a maximum of 27°C, acidity below 0.4%
  • Certified organic, vegan, and Naturland Fair
  • Rooted in the traditional food culture of the southern Peloponnese
  • A considered choice for those who value provenance and fair sourcing equally

MANI brings together the terraced groves of a difficult landscape, the certification discipline of a family that introduced organic farming to the region, and a Greek olive oil tradition that runs back to the Bronze Age.

MANI Bläuel: What Sets a Certified Organic Greek Olive Oil Apart

Organic certification governs what happens in the grove. Cold pressing and low acidity govern what happens at the mill. MANI holds both ends of that chain, along with the social certifications that sit alongside them.
QualityDescription
Certified organicEU organic farming (Bio Hellas), Soil Association Organic in the UK, and Naturland organic standards, applied across the supplying groves rather than to a single parcel.
Low acidityBelow 0.4%, well under the 0.8% required for extra virgin, which reflects healthy fruit picked and pressed promptly.
Cold pressedExtraction at a maximum of 27°C, which retains the aromatic compounds that heat would otherwise strip out.
Fair certifiedNaturland Fair, held since 2014, covering agreed prices and working conditions across the supplying farms.
Fully auditedISO 22000, ISO 9001 and IFS certification on the production side, alongside vegan certification.

On the palate the oil is fresh and mildly fruity, with almond, artichoke and wild herb notes and a gentle peppery finish. That moderate intensity is deliberate: it makes the oil versatile enough to be the only one in the kitchen.

Daily Use in the Greek Kitchen

Greek cooking uses olive oil in quantity, and an oil at this price and volume is meant to be used that way rather than rationed. The larger tins and the bag-in-box exist for exactly that reason.
UseHow to Enjoy
Raw over foodPoured over salads, grilled vegetables, beans and fresh cheese, where the almond and artichoke notes come through clearly.
Everyday cookingSautéing, roasting and braising. Greek home cooking, ladera in particular, depends on cooking vegetables slowly in olive oil rather than using it as a finishing drizzle.
With breadGood bread, olive oil and a little salt. The most direct way to judge any oil, and the way most Greek households start a meal.
Buying in volumeThe 3 litre bag-in-box and 5 litre tins keep the oil away from light and air, which is the main cause of deterioration in a kitchen.

Store away from heat and light, and use within a year of opening. Olive oil does not improve with age: freshness is the quality worth protecting.

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at MANI Bläuel

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at MANI Bläuel

At MANI Bläuel, organic farming was the starting point rather than a later adjustment, and the rest of the business was built around it. Converting a region of smallholders to organic cultivation only works if the growers can afford the transition, which is why the commercial structure and the agricultural one were developed together.

The groves are farmed without synthetic fertilisers or pesticides, the olives are hand-harvested, and the mill extracts cold. The site runs on photovoltaic generation, and the crowdfunding model introduced in 2019 provides growers with financing for sustainable agriculture.

Their approach

A family business founded on the conviction that a supply chain should be legible from the tree to the bottle has produced something unusual in Greek olive oil: roughly 300 named smallholders, agreed prices, and a Naturland Fair certification held since 2014 that audits the social side of the operation as closely as the ecological side. Felix Bläuel and Julia Löschenbrand-Bläuel now run the company their parents started in 1980, employing over 75 people in a region where alternative work is scarce, and many of the supplying families have been with the mill since the beginning. Visitors can see the whole chain for themselves at Mani Sonnenlink, the organic guesthouse the family opened in 2004.

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A Recognised Organic Pioneer

MANI Bläuel holds a place in Greek agriculture that no marketing can manufacture: the company delivered the first certified organic olive oil produced in Greece in 1991, five years after Fritz and Burgi Bläuel began promoting organic cultivation among their neighbours. That work has since been recognised through Naturland Fair certification, held since 2014, and the range has collected international awards for its organic olive oils. The clearest measure of the achievement is that organic olive farming in the Mani is now ordinary.

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The Story of the Mani: Stone, Terraces and Olive Trees

The Story of the Mani: Stone, Terraces and Olive Trees

The Mani is the central of the three peninsulas that reach south from the Peloponnese, a spine of limestone running down to Cape Tainaron. It is famously austere country: thin soils, stone tower houses, and terraces built by hand to hold what earth there is on the slopes.

Olives have been the mainstay here for centuries precisely because so little else will grow. The Koroneiki variety that dominates the region is small-fruited and low-yielding but produces oil of high quality, which suits a landscape where quantity was never going to be the advantage.

Why the Mani stands out

  • Limestone terrain and thin soils that suit the olive better than almost any other crop.
  • Hand-built terraces that make mechanised harvesting impractical on most parcels.
  • The Koroneiki variety, small-fruited and prized for oil quality.
  • Small landholdings, which keeps production fragmented and manual.
  • A dry, sunny climate with sea influence on both coasts.
  • A regional food culture built around olive oil, wild greens, legumes and fish.

What makes the Mani distinctive is that its difficulty is also its advantage. The terrain that prevented industrial agriculture from arriving is the reason the groves remain small, hand-worked and well suited to organic conversion.

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Frequently Asked Questions About MANI Bläuel

  • What is MANI Bläuel?

    MANI Bläuel is a Greek organic olive oil and olive producer based in the Mani peninsula of the southern Peloponnese, founded by Fritz and Burgi Bläuel in 1980 and now run by their children Felix Bläuel and Julia Löschenbrand-Bläuel. The company delivered the first certified organic olive oil produced in Greece in 1991.

  • Which olive variety is used?

    Koroneiki, the small-fruited variety that dominates the southern Peloponnese and is valued for the quality of its oil rather than its yield. The olives are hand-harvested from terraced groves.

  • Is the oil certified organic?

    Yes. Certifications include EU organic farming (Bio Hellas), Soil Association Organic in the UK, and Naturland organic and fair standards, alongside vegan certification and ISO 22000, ISO 9001 and IFS on the production side.

  • What does the oil taste like?

    Fresh and mildly fruity, with aromas of almond, artichoke and wild herbs and a clean, gently peppery finish. Acidity sits below 0.4%. The moderate intensity makes it suitable both for finishing and for everyday cooking.

  • Who is MANI Bläuel for?

    It suits households that cook with olive oil daily and want an organic oil they can use generously, as well as anyone who wants the social side of the supply chain certified rather than merely described.

Explore the MANI Bläuel Collection

The MANI range covers extra virgin olive oil in bottles, 3 litre bag-in-box and 5 litre tins, alongside Kalamata and green olives cured in oil, olives al naturale with oregano or with coriander seed and pink peppercorn, olive paste and a herb-infused oil. It sits within our certified organic olive oil and olives collection, chosen for the same reasons: named growers, audited certification, and oil fresh enough to use every day.

Whether you are buying a single bottle or a 5 litre tin for a household that cooks in the Greek idiom, the range is built around actually using olive oil rather than saving it.
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JOURNAL

Know What You’re Tasting

The Journal is where we go deeper into the stories and knowledge behind the collection, so you can understand what makes a product distinctive before it ever reaches the table.

It is a place to understand the details that matter, and the reasons a product earns its place with us.

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