Dreams come alive in the Cyclades

The roots of today's company HALARIS SA start somewhere in the decade of sixties, when a small child, Leonidas Halaris (current president of the company), following the family habits of the time, caught a job in a small oven – patisserie of his neighbourhood, in order to contribute to the family income.

    
His acquaintance with pastry, and the tendency of learning, introduced him as one of the talents of pastry arts.

After completing his military obligations around 1974, knowing all secret and open paths of the art he had been practising for years, he came up with the idea of building his own business, a small pastry shop in one of the neighbourhoods of the island.

His passion for art and quality of products immediately made him known in the small society of Tinos. Customers, many times ranged even from the other side of Tinos in order to buy a box of sweets and taste «the delicacies of Halari», as they were often saying.

Few were the years that the small neighbourhood would be enough to handle the great ideas and compositions of mister Halaris. Thus the small business moved to a larger building in the centre of the island.

Along with the expansion of the company, his wife joined the team, a woman who also had the same passion for pastry, the idea of transferring traditional pastries of the island, which so far constructed only as homemade, into massive production and penetration in the general trade of confectionery, was born. The production of traditional products began with the preparation of the famous Tinos marzipan. After many tests, both in materials and the means of production, the product has reached the high quality levels posed from m. Halaris and thus began the production. The same method was used for all traditional pastries, which currently manufactures the confectionary.

The traditional products increased enormously the demand and the turnover of the company. Very soon they realised that both space and equipment used was too little to meet increased production needs.

It should be noted here the contribution of the two children of the Halaris family, who from childhood even years worked in the company playing a major role in its development.

Thus the company expanded again, by constructing a proprietary area 1,300 sqm, which was filled with the most modern electromechanical equipment. The new laboratory is in compliance with the requirements of European standards (system HACCP). Helped by the deposit left by the late Tinos writer and teacher, George D. Prizas and spending endless hours of hard work the range of our product was enriched with many traditional sweets from Tinos as well as from the rest Cyladic islands.

The company currently sells its products basically in the local market. It has already started making steady progress in edging in other markets, such as the neighbouring islands. It aims to dispose of the products originally throughout Greece and preparing for the penetration of its products in foreign markets.