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Melissa Rioux, center, handles marketing, advertising and finance for Saco-based Lakonía Greek Products, which makes and sells olive oil and other Greek products. Rioux’s brother Michael, right, deals with inventory management, shipping and receiving, and sales, and he and cousin Andrew Vakas oversee production.

John Ewing/Staff Photographer

MELISSA RIOUX

WHO: President,

Lakona Greek Products

ADDRESS: 575 Main St. (U.S. Route 1), Suite 1, Saco 04072

PHONE: 282-4002

E-MAIL: info@lakoniagreek products.com

WEB SITE: www.lakoniagreek products.com

AGE: 28

ABOUT SHOPTALK

SHOPTALK ALLOWS people to describe in their own words the rewards and challenges of their jobs. In doing so, they reflect the energy, imagination and hard work that characterize the workplace in Maine.

DO YOU know of someone who would make an interesting candidate for Shoptalk? Send your suggestion to jrolfe@pressherald.com.

Q. So, if you're really "laconic," this will be a short interview

A. Well, the business' land is definitely in the area of Sparta! Olive oil originated in Crete in the late 1400s B.C. – that's where the olives were first pressed and stuff. And that spread up to the Lakonia region, the southern Peloponnese. Our olive gardens are 25 minutes below Sparta.

Q. What have you done for other jobs?

A. My family is kind of a business family. My brothers and I ran a lobster pound in Old Orchard Beach when we were teenagers. My mom wanted us to get into business at an early age, so we opened the lobster pound on the lower level of the (Sandpiper) motel, which the family has run for more than 25 years now. I was 16, Michael was 14 and Christopher was 18.

We grew up working at the motel every summer and had a little hot dog stand before the lobster pound, which I kept doing until I became too busy with college.

Q. What's the story behind the business?

A. My mom (Daphne Contraros Rioux) came to the U.S. when she was 6 years old. She went back (to Greece) in 1987 and found her family, and kept going back and visiting and getting closer to relatives. She also realized the contrast between the olive oil and the food there and here, and would bring back tins of oil, and she dreamed of having her own olive oil.

A few years ago, she bought a piece of land as a home away from home and built a house on it. It had olive trees, some more than 100 years old, and she had her own small harvest, beginning about seven years ago, and planted more trees.

She told me that she wanted to bottle and package and sell the oil, and I said, "Awesome!" She started selling at the farmers market in Saco in 2006, and then locally, and demand grew. The olive oil, Dfni, is named for her. She's since bought more land and planted more trees.

Q. How much land, and how many olive trees?

A. It's about 30 stregmata, so about 20 acres. There are more than 1,000 trees, so it's still relatively small.

Q. Did you study business?

A. After high school I went to Northeastern. I was studying communications and running Division 1 track, but I got injured and went to San Diego State, where I studied to be a physical therapy aide and then changed to business – it's one of the top 10 business schools in the U.S. At the same time, the business here was developing. I even wrote my thesis on it.

Q. Who does what, in the business?

A. My mom handles everything for Greece. She's in Greece now and goes several times a year for at least a month. We'll both be there for the harvest in December. In Maine, I do all the business – the marketing and advertising, finance – I was labeling by myself for a long time!

My brother Michael does the inventory management and shipping and receiving, and sales. He and Andrew Vakas, who's a distant cousin, keep all the production going. My brother Christopher and my father (Denis) are not as heavily involved but help out a lot.

We also have family over there, who keep up with the harvest. We couldn't have done this without my uncle Peter (Kouzounas), who died last year. He was 74, and a huge part of L getting on its feet.

Q. Who does your Web site?

A. Julie Kramer, in San Diego. She was my best friend in college and is a graphic designer. She understands what we're going for with the image and the logo and does all our graphics work. She has a unique way of doing things; at a big wholesale show in Boston, Whole Foods became super-interested in us and said the packaging made their heads turn.

Q. What percentage of the business is olive oil sales?

A. About a good 70 percent. It's No. 1, and then it varies between the Kalamata olives and the balsamic dressing – those are the top three sellers. The olive oil is unfiltered, from the Koroneiki olive. It's premium-grade, with the acidity always below .5 percent, the best you can get.

Q. How much does it cost?

A. Retail prices range from a 3.75-milliliter, or 12.68-ounce bottle, for $24.95. The 8.5-ounce is $17.95, and the 5-ounce bottle is $11.95. But you can also come back with the bottle and get $3 off the large, $2 off the medium and $1 off the smaller, so it's a good incentive to go green, recycle and save money.

What makes us different is that we do everything, from harvest to selling, so it's packaged here in Maine, in small batches. Olive oil is at its peak the first few months it's bottled, and should be consumed within 18 months. It doesn't age the way wine does. The olive oil you buy at the grocery store gets exposed to light, and it takes time to get here from overseas.

So our big thing here is bottling it in small batches, so that it's at its peak. It's pressed in Greece on the day of harvest. Storage is the key. Oxygen, light, heat – 59 degrees is the ideal temperature – and time are the four enemies of olive oil. So it's best stored in bulk and bottled as you go.

Q. I never knew it was so complicated.

A. People don't realize that in Europe, olive oil is regulated. It's rated on its level of fruitiness, bitterness and pungency, and if it's deficient, it can't be labeled as extra-virgin olive oil. In the U.S., it's a struggle to educate people. You can go to the grocery store and buy a bottle for $10, but you don't really know what the composition is.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is still working off 1940 standards, although they've been working on updating them for five years. So we emphasize that our olive oil is in its most natural state, with more nutritional value as well as more flavor.

Q. How much stuff are you selling?

A. The first year wasn't bad, like $80,000 (in gross sales). We haven't completed the second year yet, but we're hoping to double that.

Q. What's hard about the business?

A. The only thing is, it can be hard to deal with Greeks. I'm half Greek, on my dad's side, but the worst thing about this business is dealing with Greeks in Greece. Piraeus is where they ship the olive oil from, and they're on strike, on and off. When they're on strike, there's nothing we can do.

Q. When they're not, how does the oil get here?

A. It comes here, to Boston, in 5-gallon tins. We rent a truck and pick it up, and it's poured into a big stainless steel tank. As I said, it's all about how the olive oil is stored.

Q. How much olive oil are we talking about producing?

A. Every harvest is different. Last year, it was 2.5 tons. The harvest is once a year, in early December, usually the first 10 days, and it comes all at once, which is why we can only grow as it grows. You sell what you have, until the next harvest. This past year we've sold about three tons, from a 5.5-ton harvest. Sales have gone up, and the online store will be up in a couple of weeks. We're getting ready for Whole Foods and possibly Hannaford.

Q. Didn't the ancient Greeks use olive oil for washing – scraping it off themselves with a shell?

A. I've never tried that! I'm sure it's easier to olive oil soap, which we also sell – it's also pure, and comes directly from the mill when the olives are pressed. We just introduced a bunch of new products – gyro meat, locaniko (sausage), handmade pitas, tzatziki sauce (cucumber-garlic sauce), phyllo dough, yogurt, creamy feta cheese all Greek.