Lamia, Greece \u2013 At an event on the topic of Rural Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Lamia Cultural, Scientific, and Philosophical Association \u201c300\u201d presented the 2019 \u201cThermopylae\u201d Award to the Stevia Hellas Agricultural Cooperative for its innovative agricultural practices and continued development of the Fthiotida region.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have a business culture in Greece, and that\u2019s why we don\u2019t have words for many business ideas that exist in American culture,\u201d said Association President Dr. Panagiotis Iakovis, who presented the award to Stevia Hellas CEO Christos Stamatis. \u201cInnovation is a state of mind, and all too often, the fear of failure in Greece prevents people from taking advantage of their ideas.<\/p>\n
Based in Lamia, the Stevia Hellas Agricultural Cooperative stands out as a success story for its innovative production and management model. The only large-scale producer of stevia across Europe, Stevia Hellas was founded in 2011 with 47 producers and a 10-member management team. The Cooperative focuses on the cultivation and standardization of stevia products and has invested in producing top quality products.<\/p>\n
\u201cLamia used to be known for its tobacco farms,\u201d said Quality Assurance Manager Stella Dampasi, an agronomist and one of the Coop\u2019s founding members. \u201cMy grandfather, father, and mother grew tobacco. It was a family business, and I remember working in the tobacco fields. But in 2009, 2010, tobacco cultivation stopped.\u201d In 2008, the local government conducted stevia experiments with a few farmers in the area, including Stella\u2019s father. \u201cWe read that in California, tobacco farmers became stevia farmers,\u201d Stella said. \u201cWe thought it would not be difficult to grow stevia because it uses the same techniques as tobacco, but since it\u2019s food, we have to be more careful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stevia is a natural sweetener and zero-calorie sugar substitute derived from the leaves of the\u00a0 Stevia rebaudiana<\/em> plant native to Brazil and Paraguay. \u201cStevia is a 5-year cultivation, Stella said. \u201cYou cut it, and it regrows.\u201d The plant is harvested in the summer months, when the leaves have the sweetest taste. At the end of March, the stevia fields were yielding their first leaves, and I could already taste their sweetness.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started out of a small container in the village of Stirfaka, and we visited many of the locals here to convince them to join us,\u201d recalls Christos Stamatis, the charismatic CEO of Stevia Hellas. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy, but a lot of people were convinced that stevia would be a great alternative to tobacco cultivation.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonidas Zervas, the President of the Board of Stevia Hellas and the former president of the Board of tobacco producers in Greece, asked Christos to help out with the lifecycle management, promotion, and sustainability of the stevia product. Stevia had never been cultivated in the EU, so that first year involved gaining cultivation experience and getting through the EU bureaucracy to grow stevia. \u201cWe started importing seeds from different countries like the US, Canada, and Israel, and trying them in different fields,\u201d Christos said. \u201cWe had success but also lots of failure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStevia Hellas was the first stevia point in Europe,\u201d said Ilias Kalfas, Project Leader of New Agriculture for a New Generation\u2019s \u201cSmall Farm Adoption\u201d Program at the American Farm School. \u201cThey were pioneers. The EU did not have any regulations related to Stevia, so they cleared the way in terms of cultivation techniques, pesticides, etc. in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n While Stella learned about stevia cultivation, Christos visited European summits to create the right business model so that the Coop could develop sustainably. \u201cFinding the seed capital was a challenge,\u201d Christos said. \u201cSo we invested ourselves: we crowdsourced, and everyone contributed the same amount. We started with 50-70 thousand euros.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur Coop is committed to selling the final product, not the raw product,\u201d Christos said. \u201cWe produce three stevia products: first there are the dry stevia leaves, whole or crushed, that are ideal for teas, or as a sweetener in cooking. Then there is pure stevia powder, which is 250-400 times sweeter than sugar and ideal for industrial use in sodas and juices, by companies like Kri Kri, Green Cola, and Olympus. Third, there\u2019s crystal stevia, which is now sold in all Greek supermarkets as a table sweetener. A teaspoon of stevia is three times as sweet as a teaspoon of sugar. Both the pure and crystal stevia are processed by a friend\u2019s company in Lyon, France, so we have 100% European products, cultivated here in Greece.\u201d<\/p>\n Stevia Hellas is now the leading Stevia producer across Europe with 60 producers, mostly from Ligaria and Lianokladi. At the end of 2017, the Coop moved into its current building in Lamia, which includes a meeting room, kitchen area, and final products area. \u201cAs we say in my village, the sky\u2019s the limit,\u201d Christos said. \u201cThe demand is huge, and we have to fulfill the needs of our customers. That means more collaborations, more fields, more producers.\u201d<\/p>\n The Coop is known for its active role in the rural development of the region. \u201cWe focus on and invest in people,\u201d Christos said. \u201cWe continuously train our members in rural sustainable development through our participation in European RurInno & RurAction Programs. Our new producers receive training through the New Agriculture for a New Generation Program. Stella and Stefanos Papapostolou, a founding member and one of our biggest producers, became beneficiaries of the NANG program in 2018. They are learning about what steps we need to take to certify our fields for organic cultivation. We also want to enhance women\u2019s entrepreneurship and encourage more women to work for the Coop. Thirty percent of our producers are women, including our two top-yielding producers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe New Agriculture for a New Generation program is the opportunity of a lifetime, one of the biggest investments in my country, and we have to take advantage of it,\u201d Christos said. \u201cI strongly believe that cooperative educationmust be a part of this program. If we don\u2019t collaborate, how can we compete? We need to focus on synergies and the cooperative movement, focus on the sharing economy and producing more with less. There\u2019s so much potential here.\u201d He spoke with passion and conviction, and it was clear to me how much he loved Lamia.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of our producers are young people with a new way of thinking,\u201d Christos said. \u201cThey are highly skilled in different sectors. I know these people, I was born here. I am deeply embedded in this sector. I\u2019ve spent a decade working at the Cooperative, and I\u2019ve overcome challenges and difficulties. I want to pass this knowledge down to young people. I\u2019m in a good position to start sharing my expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Based in Lamia, the Stevia Hellas Agricultural Cooperative stands out as a success story for its innovative production and management model. The only large-scale producer of stevia across Europe, Stevia Hellas was founded in 2011 with 47 producers and a 10-member management team. The Cooperative focuses on the cultivation and standardization of stevia products and has invested in producing top quality products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-success-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n