About PINAX

Why it exists

Most shops selling Greek goods online say authentic or handmade and leave it there. In our own review of sixteen such sellers in September 2026, most showed no shipping costs and no way to check where anything came from. None named the region, the material and the method for every item.

That matters because some of the best-known Greek products are also some of the most imitated. The EU found oregano to be the most adulterated herb in its 2021 check, and nearly half the imported honey it sampled in 2021 and 2022 was suspected of added syrup. Kalamata has been accepted as a variety name for olives grown anywhere since a Greek ministerial decision in 2016. As far as we can establish, Greece has no independent hallmarking system, so a 925 stamp on silver is the maker’s own claim.

The answer is not a better adjective. It is a record you can check, a register link where one exists, a plain statement where one does not, and a test for the common fake. Our Field Notes explain each one.

Where the objects come from

The range leans towards mainland, northern, mountain and orchard Greece: saffron from Kozani, silver and carved wood from Epirus, silk from Soufli, looms at Anogeia, fir honey from Mount Mainalo, the mastic villages of Chios, the pistachio orchards of Aegina and the sponge warehouses of Kalymnos. Tinos and Sifnos are included for two listed crafts, marble carving and pottery. You can browse the catalogue by Greece’s 13 administrative regions on the map.

How we sell

• Only what is documented can be bought. Everything else is visible with its full record, marked Being verified, with a waitlist. See The record.
• Prices are open. VAT, shipping and duties are shown before checkout for your country. See Prices and VAT and Shipping and duties.
• No reviews until there are real orders. We will not show stars, ratings or testimonials that do not come from verified buyers.
• No invented makers. A maker is named once they have signed. Until then the record reads [partner to be sourced].

What PINAX will never sell

• Anything we cannot trace. If we cannot prove it, we do not sell it.
• Mass-imported evil-eye trinkets. Most cheap glass beads sold as Greek cannot be shown to be made in Greece.
• Replica antiquities, statues, columns and meander souvenirs. They are not what this shop is about.
• Olive wood without an audited Greek workshop. Greek olive wood looks the same as wood from anywhere else.
• Wild-picked protected plants. Where a wild plant is protected or threatened, we sell only cultivated stock, or nothing.
• Coral. Some species need CITES paperwork, and we do not want the trade.
• Religious icons as decoration. Sacred objects are not sold at launch.
• Alcohol, at launch. The excise and courier rules for cross-border sales are not something we can yet do properly.
• Repacked PDO food. Protected foods stay in their original certified packs.

The name

Πίναξ means a tablet, and by extension a list or register. The logo is a red enamel plate, the kind of sign that hangs over a village grocer’s door, with the name in plain capitals.