Laconiko is a family-owned Greek olive oil company built from generations of farming tradition. From the olive groves of Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece to kitchens in North America and Asia, the Pierrakos family blends heritage, sustainability, knowledge, love, and care to deliver extra virgin olive oil that nourishes families and preserves a precious legacy.
Saving the Family Farm: A Family-Owned Greek Olive Oil Company Is Born
In Laconiko’s Manassas, Virginia showroom, photos of Diamantis and Dino Pierrakos’s mother and father hang in prominent spots to honor them as the behind-the-scenes originators of the family business.
As Diamantis explains, “all his life, our father was a farmer in Greece.” Even after the Pierrakos children moved to the USA with their mother in search of more opportunities, “we were always going to Greece, every summer and fall. The olive harvest was a big part of our tradition and culture, and it was a way to bond with our father” among the family’s olive trees.
However, in 2008 their father talked of selling their land. As he grew older, he felt burned out from farming in Greece with little financial reward or recognition for the olive oil he produced, while his children pursued careers in America. Determined to save the family farm, Diamantis and Dino decided they needed to take action. So they created the Laconiko brand, which they named after the area where their olives grow: Laconia.
“For us,” Diamantis emphasized, “it was never about the money. What gave us the drive was a determination to keep the connection, the tradition we had with our father,” to keep the family land in the family. They worked with their father to do that, with their mother their number one fan. Their mother had taught them to be “highly determined, persistent, hardworking, and innovative,” Dino explained.
The brothers needed all of those skills, and a great deal of family support, in order to build their business. Fortunately, Dino says, olive oil “brings our family together, because it’s something we all have the same passion and love for.”
Family First: The People Behind This Family-Owned Greek Olive Oil Company
Their official company name is “Our Family’s Olive Oil LLC.” In this context, “family” means several things to Diamantis, Dino, and their wives.
Christina Veltsistas Pierrakos, Dino’s wife, points out that “family support and love is what motivates them. Family is everything; when they’re not working, they’re with their family.” Like many parents, “they want to build something that their kids are proud of, that they can share with them—their legacy.” Christina says they are also motivated by “the passion and respect they have for their dad. They continue to want to make him proud,” even after he passed away.
Katerina Pierrakos, Diamantis’s wife, adds that it helps a business “grow when your family is behind you. I’m trying to do everything possible and impossible to ensure Diamantis can do what he needs to do for Laconiko,” which involves traveling back and forth to Greece multiple times a year, often being away from the family for months at a time, as he and Dino both do to care for their groves and oversee the harvests.
Diamantis agrees that he “couldn’t accomplish half the things required if it wasn’t for Katerina’s understanding.” Dino also appreciates Christina’s support, pointing out that “nothing would be possible without the support of one another and each other to help achieve our dreams and goals.”
For Diamantis and Dino, understanding, appreciation, and connection with colleagues and customers also expand the Laconiko family beyond legal relatives. Diamantis feels like “everybody’s family to us, from our employees who share the same goals and values, to our customers who appreciate what we do, wholesale and consumer–they are all family.”
Diamantis clarifies: “if they choose to use Laconiko–and they have thousands of options–this is the biggest honor for us. They have a piece of us on the table. When we get a nice review and see how people appreciated it, it makes me want to put in double the effort next year. You feel your olive oil did its job, reflected who we are. After that email, they’re family for us. That’s the Laconiko family.”
Olive Trees as Part of the Greek Family
For Diamantis and Dino, their olive trees in Laconia are closely connected to their family; in fact, the trees even feel like family members. Equally committed to caring for their olive groves and producing the best possible olive oil, the brothers take turns checking on their trees and overseeing their harvests with “passion and dedication,” as Dino remarks.
As Diamantis explains, “being there with my family in the olive grove is what we got to experience with our father. It’s important to have my family understand and connect with the wonderful food, the wonderful fruit that heals, that has supported our family for generations. This is what is beautiful. The olive is a fruit that heals and nourishes. What is more important than this? We have lived off this olive oil and bread. The olive tree is the most blessed tree, and I want my children to understand this.”
Diamantis says his wife “fell in love with our culture, what it represents, the beautiful trees, all the generations. She said it had to be us to continue this. That made me the happiest man ever.” Now, Katerina reports, she looks forward to traveling to Greece frequently. Their twin daughters “love running around, pulling elitses [little olives] from the trees.”
When he is in the USA, Diamantis reveals, “you don’t know how excited I am to go and see and touch our trees” in Greece. “It kills me that I don’t get to see them every day. They’re like my babies, like my girls. It’s part of our culture, part of us, something you can’t separate. When you grow up with something, it’s embedded in you.”
A Family-Owned Greek Olive Oil Business Rooted in Connection
As Dino adds, “the olive groves are history that carries on, both a representation of us and something that carries on after us. They are an extension of us. They are our roots, which we are sharing with everybody.”
As Laconiko’s Greek olive trees provide the fruit that is pressed into olive juice, the Pierrakos family’s roots touch the many members of their extended family, connecting them in shared appreciation of this precious Greek liquid gold.
Thanks to Laconiko for the photos used with this article.
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