Psyche Organic Changes the Game
Let's start by talking about the olive oil side of things. Can you explain the process and what goes into making a batch of cold pressed olive oil?
Basically, you have your farmer in Greece who is cultivating olive trees. These trees have been planted in the last 50 to 100 years. Some of them, in the last thousand years. The olive tree is extremely resilient and it doesn't need a lot of water. Then, you're making sure it's not getting contaminated with insects or pests that could kill it. Our olive oil is all organic, and that means anything that's happening in the cultivation process is non-chemical. Around November, you remove the olives from the trees by knocking them off with a long rake and they fall onto tarps. We take the bags of olives to the olive oil mill where they are washed and moved through a machine that takes out the pits and then they press the olives and you get the juice.
How involved are you in the process? Are you actually going to Greece and visiting the farm, or was that only a one time thing?
We are there every season for the harvest. I'm not the farmer in the fields all year taking care of the trees, but I'm there for several weeks every year in October and November making sure that the process is going smoothly and actually working with the farmers in the mill. As we start to scale, that will change in terms of my ability to actually just work only exclusively with one farmer, but we are there and we are a deep part of that process.
How did you go from being a book publisher living in New York City to owning an olive oil company in Copenhagen?
This opportunity was presented to me in February of 2020, at a time in my life when I was peaking as a publisher in regard to what I was doing with Paradigm. Then the pandemic happened and I was back in Ohio working on a photo book, taking care of myself and my mental health. I started googling people associated with the Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka and that brought me to this Greek farmer. I bought a one-way ticket to Greece and started farming. He put me in touch with this olive oil farmer. When I finished my apprenticeship, I reached out to this farmer and went and found him and saw his production and what he was doing. I was captivated by his ideology and his mind around farming and production. I brought his oil to Denmark, introduced it to my business partner, and the rest is history. Now, I live in Copenhagen and have an olive oil store. I was open to the transition and was ready to take that next step into a different place of my life. I was publishing for almost 12 years and I was working in the arts and creating different communities and activations around Paradigm, but I saw this opportunity and I had to take it.
How are you creating a community in Copenhagen through this new venture?
There is a strong community in Copenhagen around Psyche. It's a lot smaller of a place than New York and there really isn't anything in the market like what we're doing. Having an olive company that speaks to all kinds of individuals and people, all races, all colors, all genders we are an inclusive company, that promotes health and wellness. It isn't really positioned in anything, but the education and sale of olive oil, getting people in the mind that the olive oil that they buy probably isn't what's being sold to them. We're trying to create a transparency in our supply chain on top of creating a community around what we're doing. It's a unique pocket, especially in a country that kind of needs that edge, if you will.
What is the connection between the olive oil production and distribution and the cafe you're also a partner in?
The physical cafe that we had last year was a temporary residency at the former Relæ, which was a Michelin star restaurant and is two doors down from our flagship store. That venture was brought to me by Mati Pichci, a food curator in Copenhagen who was working at Atelier September and before that, was staging at Noma. He was buying our olive oil and then he asked if I wanted to get involved. I knew it was an incredible play for marketing and for continuing to build the community. We had an amazing time doing it, and it really did activate the community in a much stronger way because it created a more open forum. The reason I'm in Milan now, is to find new ways for the oil and the cafe to reach wider communities through physical activations.
How do you intend to maintain the community if there's not a physical space?
We still have the store— Psyche Organic is an olive oil showroom/office. We actually have our one year anniversary coming up on March 18th. That's where the hub still is. Everything is still functioning out of that space. If you want to come find me or my partner or connect to the brand, you can come there as we still activate events there. Then, on top of that, when Psyche Organic or Psyche Café does an event, that's how the community continues to grow.
What other cities do you plan on expanding into?
New York and Los Angeles are both already a part of our community. I’m selling to Scarr’s Pizza in NYC and to a beautiful store in LA called Homesick Studios. These two places allow the brand to reach into communities in both cities. We plan on expanding into the rest of Scandinavia, Asia and northern Europe.
Besides the farming practices, what else makes Psyche Organic unique?
First off, our eco-friendly bag is totally unique to the olive oil industry. In the current state of the olive oil market, we are the only company selling in this bag. Then, from an aesthetic standpoint, the communities that we associate ourselves with, nobody has really gone into olive oil like a fashion brand would. Taking from my mentors and the people that I came up with and looking at how collabs work and how hype works, because that's where this thing gets really interesting is that I thought I was unique walking into a room saying, "Oh, hey. I'm a book publisher," or, "Hey, I'm a photographer or whatever." But I don't know. There's a lot of that. I walk into a room now and if someone says, "Hey, what do you do?" You say you import and export olive oil, it's a different conversation piece. That being said, just from the history that I have in design, photography, production, and creative direction, I'm applying all of this to olive oil and to scaling olive oil. That's what I would say makes it hyper unique.
What is the vision for the future of the brand? Is this what you see yourself doing for the rest of your life?
Yes and no. The vision for the future is to build a blueprint in one of the most corrupt food segments. Olive oil, from what I understand, is one of the most corrupt food industries in the game. Change the blueprint for the model and show people like, "Yo, you can create a transparent supply chain. You can actually sell people the product that they believe they are buying. You can deliver them taste. You can deliver them quality, and you can deliver them health." Right? It's built off of the principles that I learned from Yvon Chouinard at Patagonia through reading his books and following his company over the last decade. Taking that, changing the blueprint, scaling into larger markets, building an infrastructure that allows me to live my life and give back to the communities in a deeper financial way. Then, in the next ten to fifteen years, retire from the day-to-day business of Psyche Organic and build my own farm, grow food and create an art residency that's a little bit off the grid. That's my life plan, if you will.
In the past couple of years, you have made a lot of major life changes in your personal and professional life. What are some of the greatest challenges you've had to overcome?
For me, it's more about accepting certain reality points. First of all, accepting that now, Paradigm has to stop for me. It was my lifeblood for twelve years, really. I lived the brand. It was a deep part of my identity. To answer your question in the most straightforward way was my ego death from New York and from letting go of this thing that was so much of my personality and my character. I would walk around LES and you would see me out there so much, and your ego is tied up in walking into a restaurant and knowing the waitresses and girls looking at you a certain type of way, and you're walking in the streets and you see a friend of yours who's a rapper or a painter or whatever, and you have this kind of street love and you have this credibility and your ego is tied to this thing in New York City because that's what New York City cultivates. I worked my ass off to bring this ecosystem to life, and I feel very grateful to have been accepted by New York City. Having left it hurt because I was at the top of my game. I literally left right after I dropped the Adidas collab. It was a little bit difficult for me, to be honest, but I also knew that this was the right step because I was leaving something that, for me, had changed. New York City changed after the pandemic. What was happening in that upswing was really beautiful. I also feel very grateful to have been in a position where I was about to breakthrough in 2020. It just wasn't the case. Having made the decisions I made to go farm and get involved in this olive oil practice, the hardest thing for me was just leaving New York City and accepting that reality.
Is there a possibility of Paradigm and Psyche coexisting, or are you completely done with that chapter of your life?
Paradigm just released Adam Zhu's ‘Nice Daze’. We just released a book with my old friend, Sergej Vutuc. The book came out in Paris a few weeks ago. I have one more book coming out in LA with Jakob Hetzer this spring. Then, I have my final collection dropping in Osaka, Japan this fall. That wraps everything up with Paradigm and also allows the space to transition totally into Psyche Organic. Paradigm will always have this cult status thing—I'm not interested in selling it. I'm not interested in passing it on to anybody else. If you got to touch it and you got to see it and you got to be involved in any kind of way, you felt it and you know that it was real. I just feel grateful for that chapter because now I'm embodying this new thing and people are understanding that this is my new lifeblood.
Where is the product currently available for sale? Is it available online or just from specific retailers?
The olive oil is currently available at Scarr's in New York. It's also available at Homesick Studios in LA and then there will be more oil coming to North America in the next, let's say, three to six months. If you're in Denmark, you can buy it from our store. Right now we ship all over Europe so if you’re in any main bracket European country you can buy it online.
Before we wrap up, I want to say that in all the years I have known you, you have always been good at building a community around whatever it is you’re working on— whether it be publishing a book, producing a rap cypher, or designing a pair of sneakers. I'm sure that you'll be able to take this concept and bring it all over the globe.
Thank you. That's what I'm doing. It feels good because look, I don't think I'm going to change the world, but I know that the people who touch the oil are a part of the things we’re building and are deeply affected by it. It's super exciting and I feel very grateful to still have you part of this community. I hope you will come to Copenhagen and become an even bigger part of it.
