Our Team

Claire and Tim

Claire worked for a leading hotel brand, at their UK head office and for their European conference management team. Cooking is her passion, followed closely by tasting amazing local produce, travel and
running with her dog in the olive groves! Tim spent many years working in Latin America for a UK tour company, first as a tour guide there and then in marketing. Sport and good food, wine and olive oil are his big loves, along with travel, biking and hiking in the hills. 

Back in 2005, they bought a tumble-down farmhouse with a small olive grove in the Subbética, between Cordoba and Granada; with the aim of creating a small boutique hotel. Twenty years on, their property Casa Olea continues to go from strength to strength; and they (plus son Max and dog Choco) enjoy sharing their love of this beautiful corner of Andalucia with travellers from all over the world.

"We fell for this little-known region, while travelling throughout Spain in search of the perfect location to set up our B&B and start a new life. We wanted to put down roots here, have a family and be part of the local olive-farming community. Over the years, we´ve learned so much - how to cure olives, how to harvest them and what makes the best olive oils - but we have always been frustrated at why the area has remained so “off the map” for its world-beating olive oils. Etico is our chance to put that right; to help make it a more viable future for local farmers and do our bit to protect the gorgeous landscape around us". 
   

Sue and David

Sue began her career as a lawyer, ending up as in-house counsel for a multinational soft drinks company. Since then she has worked in the charity sector in a number of roles, including running a charity she and David founded together. More recently she has taken on several volunteer roles, and is currently an adviser for Citizens Advice.

David has run his own businesses for over 30 years - in software, professional services and publishing. He still runs Milestone Publishing, publishers of the Pathfinder walking guides in partnership with Ordnance Survey. Passionate about small businesses, he now advises entrepreneurs on scaling up their businesses.

"We both love Spain, good food and healthy living. And we are passionate about justice and fairness. When we discovered just how much better the artisan olive oil in Spain is than what we can buy in Britain, and learned about the challenging economics for small grove olive farmers, the seed of an idea was born. We searched from the Rioja region to Catalonia, Jaen and elsewhere in Andalucia before finding what we believe to be Spain's best olive oil region - the Subbetica."

We have loved getting to know the Subbetica and its farming community, and helping out with the olive harvest, milling and bottling process. Most of all, we’re excited by the difference we, and Etico, can make to this amazing place".

Choco and Bertie

We love running around outside and exploring the olive groves, which smell so amazing. We also love good food – and lots of it! To be honest, Etico Olive Oil wasn’t our idea, but we love it anyway; it’s tail-waggingly good, in fact. Our role on the team is to support and please our colleagues, and bring all the comfort and joy we can.

Our Supporting Cast

As a small business we depend on a number of people to help us with their time and expertise. We want to give special thanks to some of the fabulous experts who’ve helped us bring Etico Olive Oil to life:

Paco: the first of our farmers to commit to Etico.

Pepe: qualified olive oil taster, who runs the local olive mill we use for Etico.

Simon: a design and branding maestro; and he loves a pun!

Den: our web master and Shopify pro; and one of the nicest people ever.

Luca & Antonio: talented videographers who did such a great job with our film.

We also want to give a shout out to some of our local friends here in the Subbetica (Patro, María José, Jules and Trevor among them), who´ve been so incredibly committed to the Etico cause - helping us label, bottle and box 1000s of bottles of our special olive oil in this first year! A big thank you to everyone.