Meet Our Makers: Alec Randall, Founder of It’s Olio

Olive oil is a household staple in Australia, but we don’t use it like the Italians or Greeks do who slosh it over everything, appreciating the seasonal flavours, savouring the terroir.

Inspired by his Sicilian mentors, It’s Olio founder Alec Randall did something pretty radical: he put it in squeezy bottles. So now we have this incredible range of cold pressed extra virgin olive oils, single-origin McLaren Vale, full of fresh, peppery character and double the polyphenol content of supermarket olive oils… and about fifty times more convenient.

From homemade pizza and salads to pasta and fresh slabs of sourdough, It’s Olio is remaking our relationship to olive oil. Read on for our interview with Alec!

C&C: Hi Alec! Can you tell us a bit about the early days of It’s Olio? Where did the idea come from and how did the business get started?

Alec: So the brand launched in September 2023, but the idea came about a year before when I was in Italy. I was always a big wine snob and thought I would head into the wine industry. But I had a few friends that did this, put their heart, soul and every single dollar they had into it and saw how tough it was - it kind of scared me and put me off the idea of doing that. 

I went to Italy for my first international trip and did some cooking classes there. Every morning, the instructor would take us to the markets and introduce us to the storeholders and the people selling their produce. When he got to the oil, he would get very passionate and talk about the heritage and history and how it’s really meaningful. It’s more than just another ingredient, it was tradition and when it’s harvest season people would all help - the new, fresh oil release is a big celebration. 

Before that, I didn’t know anything about olive oil. It was something I would use so that I didn’t burn food. It stuck with me when he spoke so passionately about it. The rest of the trip I was buying bougie olive oils, spending sixty to a hundred euros on a 300ml bottle of olive oil. It was sort of becoming my new wine!

I came back to Australia, went to the shops to buy olive oil and quickly discovered that there’s really great oil here, but there’s not a lot of creativity in it. It wasn’t quite getting the spotlight that I thought it deserved. The origin story of It’s Olio started with my experience in Italy, noticing a gap or underappreciation for olive oil in Australia. I’m also a graphic designer, so I used that sprinkle of creativity to bring attention to the product. I partnered with South Australian growers in the Fleurieu Peninsula - everything is one hundred percent from South Australia and I wanted to support local. 

C&C: Amazing, we noticed that on your website - it quotes that It’s Olio believes in ‘one grove, one home’. Can you tell us a bit about why McLaren Vale and South Australia are a great growing climate?

Alec: It’s ideal - there’s a reason why there are a lot of vineyards there - the soil, the weather and the climate create almost like a Mediterranean climate. It’s only forty minutes from the city and we get more rain, sun and stress which is actually good for olive trees. It’s optimal for growing olives. I was drawn to the Fleurieu Peninsula, I think it’s beautiful there and it kind of reminded me of Italy and Spain too. 

C&C: Can you tell us why you wanted It’s Olio to be cold-pressed and has that been a point of difference for you?

Alec: I always wanted it to be the best - if your product is good, it’s going to do most of the talking. I thought that if I had another generic product, even if I were to give it fun packaging and cool branding, it can only go so far. So it had to be cold pressed, local and I only use the fresh harvest every year (I don’t use old oil). It has to be premium quality to make it work.

It’s definitely made it tough in terms of margins - there’s such a thin margin because rather than blending old oil or buying cheaper oils, I’ll partner with local growers and we have a standard which is cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil.

Everything is done in small batches, stored and cleaned correctly - these little things add hidden costs which people don’t usually realise. It does make it tough! But I don’t think that I would be where I am now, with Cartel & Co, with people stocking it and loving it, if there wasn’t as much of a focus on it being high quality. 

C&C: What has the process of getting It’s Olio ‘on the shelf’ and into retailers been like? 

Alec: It’s a tricky one because you have a lot of imported oil available at such a low price, because Spain will make a ridiculous amount of olive oil compared to Australia. The Australian average consumption of olive oil per person is only two litres per year, so there’s such a small consumption rate for the amount of people we have here.

It’s tricky to get on the shelf and be priced so much higher than other brands, when people are only buying a limited amount. You have to give them a reason to put it on the shelf first of all and then for someone to buy it. That’s the struggle I’m facing right now. I think that’s when expressing through my social media, marketing and advertising is important - we put our lab results online and we’re trying to educate the customers through our emails and socials that our quality and process is the reason to choose us. Maybe we’re not your everyday oil that you buy for everything, but instead of buying a bottle of wine, maybe you buy a bottle of It’s Olio. Or you have a nice salad or some people coming over for dinner and you want a nice oil on the table - that’s us. 

Getting on the shelves isn’t necessarily the big hurdle - it’s getting people to know your product and how much effort you put into it and care about it. The next step is letting people know that we are really good, our product is great and you’re going to love it. You just need to try it once. The big issue is getting it off the shelves and into people’s hands. 

C&C: In that process of getting the products ‘on the shelf’ and going through that evolution, how did you end up working with a distributor and why did you choose to work with Cartel & Co? 

Alec: I thought I could do it all myself initially and the realistic outcome is that that’s not going to happen. There are so many distributors out there, but Cartel & Co felt like the perfect fit because of their portfolio and the way that everyone from the team cares about the product and cares about it being good. It’s the same process that I take - high quality and everything done to a high standard, and I saw that in Cartel & Co. They weren’t accepting brands to move units - it was a process to onboard and I had to be accepted, which I thought was really great. It wasn’t just ‘hey, we see that you’re trending on social media - let’s get you in’. I felt like the brand was appreciated and understood which is important. 

Even now, they’re not pushing It’s Olio anywhere and everywhere - they’re putting it in select spots where they think it will fit and consumers will appreciate it. I think it’s been a mutual understanding of the brand and product and caring about the consumer. 

C&C: If I was brand new to the It’s Olio world, which product would you recommend that I try first? 

Alec: I always try to show people our regular extra virgin olive oil, because a lot of people have been buying a big two or three litre tin from Spain or Italy their whole lives. They usually go for the mild, which means that there’s not much there flavour wise. So I’ll try and show a lot of people our regular extra virgin olive oil because it’s herbaceous, fruity and fresh. If you have it by itself or just with bread, you actually understand that oil isn’t meant to be bland or neutral and that those bigger brands are blending it to be more useful in every format. We let the trees do the talking with ours - there’s going to be a flavour that is fresh and unique every single year, no two are the same. I try to always educate and push the regular first. 

If people are more familiar with olive oil, I introduce our infused range - we do a natural ingredient infusion with the oil. They’re more unique - we’ve tried to do some more exciting flavours that help the consumer to understand that it’s not a standard infused oil like a chilli oil. For example, we have a chilli garlic oregano oil which goes well with red sauce pastas, on top of pizzas or focaccia - anywhere that you want a herby kick and a bit of spice. 

C&C: What do you envision for the future of It’s Olio as a brand?

Alec: I think it would be super cool to have people I know in the future (or even myself) go to someone’s house in another state and see that they have my brand in the kitchen. For example, say a future child of mine went to their friend’s house and saw that they had the olive oil and were able to say ‘that’s my Dad’s olive oil’.

The idea of that motivates me to want to hold onto it forever and try to make it a well trusted and well known Australian olive oil brand. Back in the day, it was a fun project - I would see brands on the news that were started and sold three years later for millions of dollars and thought that was cool. But I think that was the ‘shiny object syndrome’ - you see cool cars, houses and clothes and think ‘oh wow, that’s cool’ - but I don’t think it actually is cool.

Especially because the brand has been received so well and is respected, all I want to do is build it up and have it stay. The main goal is to get it into as many households as possible and to have it be respected and well known. I want to be a trustworthy Australian brand.

—