A new small business has launched in Steelville. Original and flavor-infused olive oils and vinegars are offered by The Purple Olive, owned by Maureen Kush and Ben Stemmler. Products are available to purchase at The Singer Butcher Shoppe.

The couple used to purchase their olive oils and vinegars from a locally owned tasting room when they lived in Kush’s home state of Pennsylvania. They’d often send the products as gifts for birthdays or holidays to Stemmler’s family and friends back in Missouri, and they were a hit.

“One of our friends, she actually called up the place back in Pennsylvania and had them ship her some of the product, because she loved it so much,” Kush said.

When the pair moved to Steelville in 2022, they realized nothing like it existed locally, but knew that people in the area already loved the product. After getting settled in for a few years after the move, they decided to open their own business. 

The Purple Olive sources its olive oils and vinegars from Laconiko, a family-run olive grove in southern Greece that also supplied the tasting room the owners loved visiting in Pennsylvania. Laconiko is known for its high quality and has been designated one of the most awarded extra virgin olive oils in the world.

“They’re the ones who really put in the hard work of growing the olives and doing the pressing and all of that stuff,” Kush said. “So we want people to know, this is the company that we are getting it from, this is the quality.”

To start out, The Purple Olive is offering 11 olive oils and five vinegars, though they may expand in the future. Flavors were chosen after gauging opinions from community members in a post on Facebook. 

Olive oil flavors will include blood orange, portobello mushroom, cranberry, tuscan herb, rosemary, Persian lime, Greek basil, Mediterranean, smoked chili, gremolata and harissa. Vinegar flavors being offered are apricot, tangerine, cranberry, honey ginger and champagne.

Choosing a venue where they would  sell the products was simple. Stemmler’s mom, Beth Yount, owns The Singing Butcher Shoppe. Making gourmet cooking ingredients available alongside the shop’s meats felt like a natural choice.

“His mom is very, very particular about making sure that anything that goes in there is high quality, and I do appreciate that,” Kush said. “We’re very supportive of the community, yet we will never sacrifice quality.”

The Purple Olive has had its logo long before Stemmler and Kush chose the business’ name. A friend’s daughter sent the drawing to them in a handmade Valentine’s Day card last year. After asking for her permission to use it, they decided the artwork would be perfect to represent their business.

Deciding on a name was the next step. Kush said she appreciates positive symbolism, and discovered online that purple olives represent peace, wisdom, longevity and divine blessing.

“I was like, that’s perfect, because I hope that we and our business are able to exude those qualities on a regular basis,” Kush said.

Kush said she could see the business eventually having a storefront on Main Street, with an event space to host simple cooking classes for the community. But for now, the couple is happy to take things one step at a time in partnering with The Singing Butcher.

“ I think that’s kind of like the central theme of the butcher shop and just our family in general, is just being supportive of other small businesses,” Kush said. “Everybody has a dream, you know, and being able to get behind other people’s dreams and kind of help them take off is fun.”