OliveAura: From a home cook’s pantry staple to a growing olive oil brand

Prem Pithwa spends his days on aerospace and automotive engineering. Off the clock, he’s working on his passion project: delivering high-quality extra virgin olive oil through OliveAura.

The idea traces back to his parents, who introduced him to extra virgin olive oil when he was young. Over the years, living in the UK and the USA, Prem struggled to find olive oil of the highest quality that remained true to freshness and natural methods, so he began sourcing it privately.

Eventually, he decided to make it accessible for everyone.

Rooted in a family tradition

Prem is of Indian heritage, but he grew up in the UK. His parents, on the other hand, grew up in East Africa during a time when processed food was rare.

Meals came from home gardens, local farms and markets, and seasonal harvests. The food was fresh because there were few alternatives. “My parents are an old generation where there was no such thing as a supermarket,” Prem explained. 

That upbringing shaped how Prem came to think about food. He grew up with the same appreciation for real, unprocessed food, something that stuck with him well into adulthood.

It’s a value that found its match years later, after settling in the UK, when Prem’s parents were introduced to Greek extra virgin olive oil by a family friend. 

The ingredient quickly became a staple in their kitchen, and the habit stayed with Prem into adulthood. Even after moving away from home, he continued sourcing high-quality Greek extra virgin olive oil privately for himself and his family.

That personal habit soon revealed a market gap. Finding authentic, high-quality Greek olive oil was harder than it should have been, inspiring Prem to launch OliveAura in the second half of 2025.

The journey behind every tin

Driven by his passion for real food, Prem enjoys running the business almost entirely on his own right now.

Having tasted olive oil from producers around the world, Prem is particular about quality. Greek and Jordanian oils remain his favorites, which is part of why OliveAura’s sourcing has stayed rooted in Greece from day one.

He sources the olive oil from his friends’ small family farms in the Northern Peloponnese region of Greece, and returns each harvest himself. The first harvest produced 750 tins across three label types.

His trip later this year, in October and November, will mark OliveAura’s second harvest, during which the olives will be pressed at a local extraction facility before being shipped to the UK.

From harvest to homepage

Sourcing exceptional olive oil was just the start. Prem also needed to build a brand and make strategic moves to reach more people. He decided to build a website as one of his online communication and selling channels.

He first came across Hostinger through a video on Veritasium – the science and engineering YouTube channel hosted by Derek Muller. Then he explored several other options before choosing Hostinger, believing it met all his needs as a solo business owner.

Prem created OliveAura’s website using Hostinger’s AI website builder.  At first, he tried the drag-and-drop website editor, but then discovered vibe coding as an alternative.

It was his first experience building a website with AI. He quickly found that building the site by describing what he wanted in plain language sped up the process. 

Using conversational prompts, he refined the website, added a database, and set up ecommerce functionality.  Thanks to his existing coding skills, he further tweaked the site’s source code within the built-in Code Editor to match the website design he needed.

Once he had settled on the overall structure, the site itself came together in about two days. “The most valuable feature has been the vibe coding prompt and the ability to easily integrate shop features and products,” Prem said.

For Prem, however, the website was never meant to be just an online storefront. He didn’t want to position OliveAura as another premium food brand or rely on marketing buzzwords to sell his products. 

To approach new customers, Prem leaned more towards helping people understand what they’re buying. “It’s about educating people and being transparent,” Prem explained. He wanted his customers to make informed decisions.

That intention shaped much of OliveAura’s website content. He filled it with detailed explanations of olive oil production, sourcing, and the science behind extra virgin olive oil, along with product pages and educational resources.

As a result, most of the roughly two-month journey to launch was spent researching, writing, and refining the content – from sourcing information to the blog, which he continues to update.

Growing OliveAura, one step at a time

Just a few months after launch, Prem describes early interest in OliveAura as encouraging – driven largely by word of mouth and growing social media engagement, rather than high-volume search traffic just yet.

For his trip back to Greece for OliveAura’s second harvest, he hopes to capture more behind-the-scenes footage from the farms and extraction facilities. 

Orders have picked up since the website went live, but Prem sees search visibility as the next milestone. His goal is to rank on the first page of search engines for relevant keywords, such as “organic extra virgin olive oil UK.”

To get there, he’s steadily expanding OliveAura’s educational content, publishing blog posts once or twice a month, and sharing them on Instagram to reach a wider audience. 

He’s also weighing a move into YouTube advertising to reach new audiences. At the same time, he’s exploring Hostinger Reach to experiment with email marketing strategy.

For Prem, every new visitor is another opportunity to share the knowledge he’s gained over the years. If people leave OliveAura better equipped to recognize a high-quality olive oil, he considers that a success in itself.