Wadih’s blog

March 2009 saw the start of Equitable Gourmet’s third year of trading, and this has truly been an exiting period for the company.

I would like to share some of the highlights of this stage in our company’s growth and to take this opportunity to thank all the stakeholders who contributed to their materialization.

In April of this year, we saw the successful launch into the UK of our wonderful range of Aloe Ferox based products from South Africa. The Aloe Juices in particular have been well received and their performance has been truely remarkable.

In addition, consumer reaction to our Marigold-labelled Pomegranate Molasses (introduced in October 2008) has been very positive and the product has established for itself a solid and growing demand base. We are hopeful that its presence on shelves accross the UK will only continue to expand.

This year Equitable Gourmet’s products have also found their way to other European markets. The company has appointed distributors in the Benelux countries (Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg) and in France where a number of our products are set to be promoted in 44 Daily Monoprix stores at the start of 2010. More information on these markets and our activities and partners there will follow in an upcoming blog!

On the downside, In 2009 we sadly had to discontinue a number of our lesser performing products. After having invested time and resources in them, and into developing strong relationships with their producers, these decisions were not easy to make.

I would like to extend my gratitude to those producers concerned for their efforts throughout. I encourage them to gain from their experience and the feedback from Equitable Gourmet in order to continue further in their efforts to develop their businesses and their product propositions.

I hope that all of these developments contribute to the strenghthening the Equitable Gourmet brand, while helping to establish the company as an innovative, sustainable and successful player in the ethical and health foods sectors.

Very Best

Wadih

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that Equitable Gourmet is now sourcing a wonderful range of products from South Africa.

Our supplier there, Totally Wild (PTY) Ltd is a young small company located near Cape Town, the 2nd largest city in South Africa.  Established in 2007 the company specializes in the development of food and beverage products, the key ingredient of which is ALOE FEROX

This is a very exciting development for the company and as we look ahead, this new chapter in our growth brings with it new challenges and opportunities. It is truly marvelous to think that we have now expanded our family of producers to this beautiful and intriguing continent, and I look forward to the day when many more from other countries and regions will be welcomed in, to share in this wonderful journey onwards.

Our Totally Wild range will be on UK shelves as of next week, and will be available at many of our existing retail outlets.

Very Best

Wadih

In our continued effort to develop our market presence, we are proud to introduce our Marigold Pomegranate Ketchup and Pomegranate Molasses, two innovative offers to the UK consumer. The products which were first presented at the Specialty and Fine Food Fair held at the Olympia Grand Hall in September, will be distributed nationally from October of this year.

The Pomegranate Molasses is sourced from our existing producer Joseph Menhem, who was able to provide us with a versatile molasses product, ripe for the taste of the sophisticated developed-market consumer, and the work that we carried out on the Pomegranate Ketchup, a product that Equitable Gourmet conceptualized and developed was particularly exciting and rewarding.

Hallousieh Women’s Cooperative was as our producer of choice for this product. The cooperative had suffered serious setbacks during the summer war in 2006, at which time we were to list 2 of their sun-dried tomato products with our retail partners here in the UK. Unfortunately the village of Hallousieh was targeted during the events of that summer, resulting in damaged crops and the displacement of many of its residents.

Having recently had their production facilities reconstructed by GVC, an Italian NGO with funding from the Italian Cooperation in Lebanon, the cooperative was once again ready to engage in our joint initiative. For Equitable Gourmet, the challenge of working with Hallousieh on their first serious production run since 2006 entailed securing additional support for them from GVC and from our exiting partnership with arcenciel who provided the required technical support and training as well as additional equipment purchases needed by the cooperative an its members.

Most importantly,  the commitment, enthusiasm and hard work of the ladies at Hallousieh made it possible for us to meet the challenges of producing this product to specification, and within an exceptionally  short period of time.

As well as thanking all of  Hallousieh Cooperative’s members for their hard work and high spirits, I would like to take this opportunity to also thank all the people involved in helping to bring this product to market, and specifically Wajdi Khater and George Abi Rizk at arcenciel who put in a lot of time and effort and who dedicated themselves to the success of this initiative from day one.

Read more from UNDP Lebanon document:

www.undp.org.lb/communication/SuccessStories/Successstories&Testimonies.pdf

It brings me great pleasure to announce that Equitable Gourmet has partnered with arcenciel, a Lebanese NGO, on its ILAC development project.

As well as providing support in obtaining organic certification for our suppliers and converting our current range of products to organic, arcenciel will also support our marketing activities by sponsoring some of our initiatives in the UK and EU.

We will be sharing our resources and market-knowledge with arcenciel and will work with them to create a sustainable framework through which their project beneficiaries and Lebanese SMEs more generally will be able to effectively access international markets with innovative quality products that demonstrate strong demand.

This project partnership mirrors a fundamental aspect of Equitable Gourmet’s ethical trading model where our trading activities not only work towards creating sustainable growth for SMEs in developing countries, but also contribute to the effectiveness in the use of donor funds.

You can find more information on ILAC on our website, and I will be updating you on project developments as they occur.

Regards

Wadih

NB> arcenciel’s website can be found at: www.arcenciel.org

I would like to welcome you to the world of Equitable Gourmet.

It has been one year since our products were first listed on the shelves of Fresh & Wild / Whole Foods Market, and we are proud indeed that they can now be found at around 40 food retailers here in the UK.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our stakeholders for the support that they continue to give us as we work towards firmly establishing the company in what is, a very cut throat and competitive market.

Our aim is to inspire successful and sustainable entrepreneurship, and to do so in partnership with stakeholders that believe that through quality products which are in demand, there are alternative and more equitable profit-maximizing trading models that can and do have positive impacts on community, ecology and society at large.

Our “business model” is not the simplest to work, and the country risks related to Lebanon, our first country of supply, make it all the more difficult. Our world however is one where every challenge that we overcome, and every obstacle that we successfully remove, represents a step toward reaching this ultimate objective.

It is true that consumers are becoming more and more concerned with many socio-economic and environmental issues, and that where relevant to themselves, they do act upon these concerns in order to influence them. Within the world of Equitable Gourmet, this is indeed something we have felt, and as this relationship develops, it is my intention to share with you my experiences on this journey.

I hope that you do decide to join our extended family, and look forward to sharing with you more…

Kind Regards

Wadih