Our Story
Soil is a brand name for a category of food and goods produced and manufactured by Saab Family Products. Saab Family Products is a family-owned business generations in the making. The Saab family hails from the Koura region of Northern Lebanon, where they and their ancestors have resided for centuries. This particular region of Lebanon, which stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to Mount Lebanon, is known for its olive orchards. In fact, the olive orchards of Koura, which can be found in the region’s foothills and low-lying plains, are some of the most extensive in Lebanon and the Middle East. The unique geography of mountains that cascade into the sea is what contributes to the uniqueness of the soil, which in turn affects the quality and taste of the olives and products we make.
Saab Family Products leverages cultivation, production, and manufacturing methods that are hundreds of years old. Every year we join together in a community of family and friends to grow and to harvest our olive fields, typically in the late fall to early winter months. We do this the way we always have-- the ways that our relatives showed us, and the ways that our ancestors have for hundreds of years. Certainly, we have incorporated modern technologies to improve crop quality, yield outcomes, and oil pressing. At our core, however, we have tried to stay true to the ways we learned and those we learned from. Whether from parent to child or neighbor to neighbor, we have tolled the fields together with our community to bring a product to table and to market that is developed through kinship and love.
Our Process
Our insistence on traditional farming methods means that at Soil, we farm without insecticides or other chemicals, such as additives or repellants. In our experience, an all-natural approach has yielded the best quality and taste for our products.
Over generations, we have learned to appreciate the individualism of a single harvest and how factors such as climate and soil quality affect our yield. How we harvest also matters! Our experiences from the previous years, the timing of our harvest, and how we mill or press our olives, for example, can produce subtle, but unique flavors in our products.
Our Olive Oil
Creating extra virgin olive oil, for example, begins with the first press of the olive. The quality of the raw material, the olives themselves, is what determines the quality of the oil. Only fresh and quality olives should be used to produce extra virgin olive oil. Our all natural olives are handpicked from the trees, with sprigs and leaves separated from the fruit by hand. As we pick and gather, our olives undergo no additional treatments or chemical processing, other than a standard washing. These olives are sent to the mill, and extra virgin olive oil arrives at the first cold-press of the fruit.
Heat, temperature excursion, oxygen, or direct sunlight can cause the oil to oxidize, and to do so rapidly. Our extra virgin olive oil is always stored accordingly to preserve the quality of the oil and the taste. We always advise to store our oil in dark and cool locations. Bottled, unopened oil can be kept for a period of two years. Once a bottle is opened, we advise the oil be consumed within a period of months.
