Our Story – KAÏA

MEET THE FOUNDER

I am Sarah Ben Romdane, the founder behind KAÏA. I was born in Paris to a Tunisian father and a Syrian mother, and grew up in London before returning back to Paris after university. Prior to launching KAÏA, I was a journalist and editorial consultant.

I was lucky to spend the summer of 2020 in Tunisia, where my parents live. Although I have been spending all my summers there since I was born; this time, I was able to connect with the place I now call home in an even more profound and thoughtful way.

I have always been passionate about my identity and my family’s history, but that summer has given me a newfound appreciation of the land that informs both my activism and my creativity.

I rediscovered the joy of slow living and realised how the Mediterranean can be such a powerful tool for healing.

I asked myself how can I build a life and career with the purest intention, and KAÏA was the answer.

So I quit my job and decided to launch an olive oil brand from our family-owned estate, a century after my third great-grandfather Mohamed Romdane, and his son Romdane Ben Romdane did it. From the end of the 19th century until the 1950’s, my family was producing and exporting olive oil from our town of origin Mahdia to Europe and America, where it won prizes.

With KAÏA, I wish to spotlight a widely overlooked terroir, encourage a more holistic approach to life, explore the ongoing role of food and farming as resistance and create a better world where our stories can live on.

HONOURING THE BEAUTY AND THE POWER OF OUR LAND

Brought to Tunisia by the Pheonicians, the olive tree has been intertwined with our Mediterranean culture for thousands of years.

At KAÏA, we are sharing what our ancestors have been doing for generations. They have been using olive oil as a sacred ingredient that nourishes and heals. Everything we do is given the utmost consideration to that cultural tradition.

GETTING BACK TO OUR LEGACY OF FARM-TO-TABLE

Tunisia is the third largest olive oil producing country in the world. But the vast majority of Tunisian olive oil is bought in bulk at a cheap price by European industrial companies, and gets blended with other oils to create a standardized product that costs much less and loses the regional tasting notes.

KAÏA’s independent family-owned operations reflect the hard work that goes into producing real olive oil, highlight the terroir that get lost in large-scale production and tell a story about the lands and rural communities who sustain it.

KAÏA MEANS…

Our brand name is rooted in both the Arabic name Rokhaya which means enchantment and refers to a formula that has magic power, as well as the term Ruqia, which means to rise.