The founding of Ithaca Bound Imports
After initial trips to Greece and Spain, Andrew Schiestel envisaged a company that would sell Mediterranean-based products, giving people a way to bring more Mediterranean lifestyle and culture into their lives regardless of where they lived.
On a third trip to the Mediterranean in 2020, Andrew (with his dog, Trevor) rented a car in Porto, Portugal, and drove one day from Lisbon all the way into the area of Seville in Spain. (The Andalucía region)
He was in search of finding Mediterranean products & suppliers to begin a company that would make these products available to the masses.
As he was driving down the highway from Seville to Málaga, he became captivated with the endless panoramic sea of olive trees that appeared. His idea was simple at the time—He would try to find the farmer of a given orchard and negotiate to buy, export, and sell the farmer’s olive oil.
He pulled off the highway and walked onto his first olive orchard. He immediately became immersed and deeply connected with the presence of thousands of fantastical-looking and sagacious olive trees spread neatly in organized, seemingly endless rows. There was so much to understand and discover about olive trees and the juice that they produced— Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Andrew didn’t find a farmer on that olive orchard that day. But he did decide that Ithaca Bound would make Extra Virgin Olive Oil available to the world.
And so, the journey began.
