São Paulo – Brazilian entrepreneur Katya Salomão, 55, spent much of her adolescence in her maternal grandmother’s kitchen, where the two shared a cherished ritual: making herb-infused olive oils. The tradition had been brought from Syria by her grandmother, Maria Issa Salomão, who learned it from her own mother before immigrating to Brazil with her husband, Belmiro João Salomão.
What began as a hobby eventually became Katya’s profession. In 2018, she launched Kochen Flavored Olive Oils, an online store selling infused olive oils. Since then, her products have reached customers in nearly 20 Brazilian states and won international awards.
“My grandmother came to Brazil when she was young, adapted to life here, raised a family, and one of the things she loved most was making infused olive oils for us. The recipes changed with the seasons, but she used a variety of herbs, including rosemary, basil, oregano and sage,” the entrepreneur recalls.
Born in Vespasiano, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, Katya began helping prepare the oils at around age 14. “My grandmother would naturally dry the herbs in the sun before crushing them with olive oil. She would then strain the mixture and top up the bottle with extra virgin olive oil. It’s one of my fondest memories from my youth,” she says.
At the time, however, cooking was simply a family tradition. Katya’s professional future seemed destined to follow a different path: dance.
From rehabilitation to the stage
professional dancer and even owned two dance studios. Her connection with ballet began by chance. At age seven, Katya fell into an empty swimming pool and broke both arms. With no physical therapy services available in her hometown at the time, her orthopedic doctor recommended dance classes to help restore her mobility.
Over time, she became a classical ballet dancer and later earned a degree in physical education. At 14, she opened her first ballet and jazz studio.
“Syrians, and Arabs in general, have a strong drive to start working early, so I began while I was still a teenager. My father helped me set up my little studio, which gradually grew,” she says.
The goal was to sell 50 bottles of flavored olive oil during the week-long course, but I finished the challenge having sold 108.
Katya Salomão
After finishing high school, Katya had to balance a full-time university program with the dance classes she taught in the evenings. The business eventually grew into two dance studios, which remained in operation for 39 years.
In 2009, Katya temporarily stepped away from her routine after accepting an invitation to serve as Vespasiano’s municipal secretary of culture, a position she held for eight years.
After leaving public office in 2017, she returned to the business, which had remained under the care of a manager. It was then that she realized how disconnected she had become from running the dance studios.
“I experienced a culture shock between public and private management, so I decided to rediscover myself as an entrepreneur by taking Sebrae’s Empretec program,” Katya says.
Empretec is an entrepreneurship training program developed by the United Nations and offered in Brazil by Sebrae, which promotes the competitiveness of small businesses.
“During the seminar, participants had to create a temporary company to put entrepreneurship concepts into practice, and I founded Cria. At first, the goal was to sell 50 bottles of flavored olive oil during the week-long course, but I finished the challenge having sold 108,” she says.
Cria was the informal name Katya gave the business during the training program.
Building the business
A month later, her first customers began returning, and orders quickly picked up. The bottles, which had initially been given as graduation and Christmas gifts, soon found their way to neighborhood fairs, where they regularly sold out within a matter of hours.
“At first, I made the olive oils by hand, but once I realized they could become a business, I officially launched the company in February 2018 and decided to deepen my technical knowledge. During the pandemic, the dance studios were closed, so I focused on producing olive oil. When they reopened, I realized I no longer wanted to stay in that business,” she says.
Since then, she has completed olive oil sommelier training in Italy, Uruguay and Australia. The company now offers about 90 products, including roughly 35 varieties of flavored olive oils, as well as jams and liqueurs. The raw materials are sourced from carefully selected producers in Minas Gerais.
Just a few years after founding the company, Katya earned her first international recognition. In 2022, she entered six flavored olive oils in a competition in Italy. All six won awards: three received gold medals and three took silver.
In 2024, she won the title of the world’s best flavored olive oil in the mint category. This year, her orange-flavored olive oil ranked among the world’s top five. Overall, the entrepreneur has earned more than 30 international awards.
Kochen currently sells its products in 17 Brazilian states, serves more than 1,000 individual and corporate customers, and employs nine people. The company is ready to begin exporting and is looking to expand its presence in international markets, particularly the United States.
Despite the company’s growth, Katya says its greatest asset remains the tradition she inherited from her grandmother.
“You have to truly believe in the product and in the wisdom of your ancestors to turn a family tradition into a business. Very few people have the courage to do that,” the Brazilian entrepreneur says.
Learn more about Kochen.
Report by Rebecca Vettore, in collaboration with ANBA
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
