Oake Woods & Co

Oake Woods & Co was born in the Karoo, in a landscape of dust, stars and silence.For us, the Karoo is a place of purity, far from bright city lights, where the night sky still belongs to the Southern Cross.

​​

​

The Southern Cross

In our logo you will see this sky, the Hantam Mountains and a single windmill. The Southern Cross has always been a sign of orientation and home. The name Negester – Nine Star – comes from the poem "Negester en stedelig" by the South African poet D. J. Opperman (1914–1985). In this poem, the Negester, the bright stars of the southern sky, stand in contrast to the lights of the city. For our family, this image became a symbol of being rooted in a place. Responsibility, gentleness and a quiet trust in one's own place in the world shape this idea.

​​

​

The One-Star

Oake Woods & Co was founded by Eben and me, Kristi. Eben is from South Africa, I am from Austria.

​

The two stars in the logo tell our own story. In Styria, under a full moon and with a bottle of red wine, Eben and I sat in the vineyards and gazed up at the sky. There we discovered Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, which is in fact made up of two stars: Sirius A, the brilliantly white primary star, and Sirius B, its quieter companion, a faint white dwarf. They orbit each other in a slow, fifty-year dance, remaining inseparably bound to one another.

​

In that moment, we recognised ourselves in them: two stars that shine as one. So we gave the constellation its own name – Einstern, One-Star.

Later we discovered that the very same star, Sirius, also appears over the Karoo when the Southern Cross rises. For us, this is a quiet reminder that love, like the sky, spans continents and connects people, even when oceans lie between them.

​​

​

The Windmill

The windmill stands for the unyielding spirit of the Afrikaners and their ability to make something out of almost nothing, drawing water and life from the dry earth.

​​

​

The Hantam Mountains

The Hantam Mountains in the background are for us a picture of permanence and constancy. They are rock that cannot be moved, that withstands every storm and reminds us to do our work calmly, honestly and without shortcuts.

​​

​

Oak Wood

The oak wood stands for our craft. Bacon is smoked over oak and cut on oak boards. The ring of this wood that encircles everything is our symbol for tireless work: repeating the same careful movements over and over until the result is right. The name Oake originally comes from an old English bacon company, but for us it simply means wood, fire, salt, meat and permanence.

​​

​

Family

Elmar, Eben's brother, and his wife Juanita live the same spirit of Negester: creating a home in which people are seen and in which care happens quietly and naturally. All four of them, and their children too, share a deep love of braai and the craft of meat processing, from selecting the right cut to the last slice of boerewors on the board. The images in the logo therefore tell not only the story of Eben and Kristi, but also find their echo in the lives of Elmar and Juanita. It is a shared story that exists between them without needing to be spoken aloud as it is in a family.

​​

​

Where the worlds become one

Under the vast sky of the Karoo and within the stillness of the Alps, the circle closes. Here, the dust of our heritage merges with honest craftsmanship into that very flavour which brings the images of our childhood to life in every bite. It is the union of South African soul and Austrian constancy, held together by an invisible bond. Above all stands what holds us together as a family: the love of our origins and the unshakeable strength of resilience.