A natural sea sponge supplier since 1958.

Our journey goes back in time several decades now, to 1958, where my grandfather, Emmanouel Psarras started his diving career as a sponge diver in a small fishing village, New Koutali, in the Greek island of Lemnos. Shortly after he managed to obtain his own boat.

Harvesting all around the Aegean sea, and even reaching the coasts of Lybia and Tunisia, he managed to become one of the leading sponge divers of his era.

Two decades later my father, Panagiotis Varnalis, took over the family business and evolved it, mostly orienting towards sea sponge processing and trading. In 1997, I joined the company, upgrading the final products and services offered to our customers.

Today, Spongean is dealing with Greek, Mediterranean and Caribbean Sea sponges, serving both the local Greek market and exporting worldwide as well.

We collect our sponges from the Mediterranean and Caribbean seas. Sustainability is our main goal, as the divers we work with, harvest a very specific area every year. Therefore, they have to keep the sponge population at the fishing sites at least stable, in order to keep the balance on this mini ecosystem.

The sponge population is preserved by the harvesting methods. Divers either cut the sponge from its route, so the part remaining at the sea bottom will regenerate a new sponge, or squeeze the sponge while picking it up so that seeds drop off the sponge, seeding the surrounding area.

Both methods can be used at the same time. In this way nature is not disturbed and also these divers, year after year, will find enough sponges for their next harvesting.