Best Wishes For The Year 2013

FTL at Zeytouna Bay

FTL at Zeytouna Bay

FTL is present at the Christmas Market of Zeytouna Bay. FTL offers a tasty menu with several choices of Sandwich. To you to come and taste our « Délices du Terroir »! If you have any new proposal, do not hesitate to share it with us! 

FTL at the Abu Dhabi SIAL

FTL is travelling this weekend to Abu Dhabi for the SIAL. FTL will expose all its products and will try to introduce the Arab market. Objective: To find new markets for our local products! FAIR TRADE LEBANON wants to make possible for everyone - and especially Lebanese diaspora - the purchase of the Lebanese product

FTL's Certification

FTL received, on Saturday, a certification that testifies its participation to the Beirut Cooking Festival. It was one of the best experience FTL has ever had! Thank you all for your support and your help! See you on the next event.

Join us at the Beirut Cooking Festival

FTL at Beirut Cooking Festival

FTL will be exposing at the Beirut Cooking Festival from the 8th till the 10th of November, at Le Pavillon Royal. Come and taste all our delicious products ! we will be exposing all kind of Jams, Oil, Molasses, Zaatar... We're waiting for you!  

Lebanese Fairtrade wine in Japan!

We are delighted to inform you that the first Lebanese Fairtrade certified wine "Coteaux Les Cèdres" is now available in…Japan!

Check it out here.

FTL at Annecy - France

We just received some pictures of FTL's products exposed in Annecy-France, at Artisans du Monde shop. Indeed, some friends went for a walk in the old streets of Annecy. Suddenly, they found a store that sells Fair Trade products. They stopped by and searched for our items.

Apparently, our Zaatar, Boulgour, Chickpeas and Lentils are a success. 

FTL Future Plans

FTL program for the upcoming months:

·         8-10 Novembre 2012 : Beirut Cooking Festival 

·         25-29 Novembre 2012 : SIAL Abou Dabi

·         6-7-8 December 2012 : Christmas market at the French Embassy 

·         8 to 23 December 2012 : Christmas market at Zeytouna Bay

Support FTL in all these projects and contribute to the happiness of Lebanese farmers specially during Christmas Period! We count on your help and efforts to spread the world and encourage your friends to be a FTL Fan too!

Our pictures at the exhibition "Le Verger de Marie"!

FTL at "Le Verger de Marie"

FTL exhibits its products in the shop "Le Verger de Marie" in Jounieh. You will find all the products! The place is really nice. It's handled in an old typical Lebanese house. 
Date: Saturday, October 6, 2012 at 11:30 am
We count on your support!

With our Fair Trade partners

FTL at WFTO-Africa

FTL is finally a member of the WFTO-Africa board! From now on we represent the Middle East in the Fair Trade World :) Photos are coming ! 

FTL Zaatar is becoming more and more successful !

http://www.hellocoton.fr/to/pAnC#http://www.paprikas.fr/article-manaiche-ou-galettes-au-zaatar-109562836.html

First FTL Sales !

21 FTL products had been sold in one month at "Maison de l'Artisan"-Ain El Mreysseh!!

FTL at WFTO Regional Conference in Tanzania

Dear FTL Fans,

This is to announce you that FTL (Fair Trade Lebanon) will be present at the WFTO (World FairTrade Organisation) Regional Conference! 

It will be held in Tanzania, from the 16th of September till the 22nd.

Thank you for buying our products at TSC branches!

Our products are available since May 2012 in TSC supermarkets: Baabda, Dora, Downtown, Verdun & Jnah.

You can also find our product selection in Caliprix (Jounieh Highway) and ASSAHA (Mar Takla Hazmieh).

World Fair Trade Day 2012 : Join us!

Celebrate with us the World Fair Trade Day at Beirut Souks, with plenty of fun activities!

An event organized by: Fair Trade Lebanon, Fairtrade International and the Ministry of Environment.
Supported by: Institut Francais du Liban, TSC Signature, Beirut Souks, Solidere, MTV

Your support and presence would be great to us! Thank you all!

Black Gold: coffee, a very tough business

This trailer puts forward the coffee business and its hardships on producers; To sum it up, for a 3$ cup of coffee, producers only earn 3 cents.
Let's make trade fair!

What will you do for fairtrade this year?

This year take a step for fair trade! watch this video by fairtrade UK and let's get started!

Conférence débat animée par M. Philippe Adaime: les Jeudis du MEREF

Le Jeudi 22 Mars 2012 :

M. Philippe Adaime, trésorier administrateur de Fair Trade Lebanon, a animé une conférence débat sur le thème "le commerce équitable au Liban" dans le cadre des Jeudis du MEREF (le Mouvement des Entreprises et Représentations Economiques Françaises au Liban).

La conférence a été suivie d'une dégustation des produits de Fair Trade Lebanon: vin rouge équitable, confitures, sirops, mana'ishs...

Ces conférences ont lieu une fois par mois à l'université de l'ESA!

"How can trade be fair?"

by Eliot Stempf from the TimeOut Beirut magazine !

‘When we translate the phrase “fair trade” in Arabic for farmers, they sometimes laugh! “How can trade be fair? In Lebanon, trade is always unfair. If you are not the winner, you are the loser.” So Benoit Berger, Director of Projects for the organization Fair Trade Lebanon (FTL), illustrated one of the several fundamental challenges that fair trade foods face in Lebanon. Not even local Lebanese producers – those who could stand to benefit the most from a market for Lebanese fair trade foods – necessarily get the idea.

Fair Trade Lebanon began out of a desire to alleviate the impovershed circumstances of the south and the many villages caught in conflicts over the Lebanese- Israeli border. International NGOs were distributing goods, but not ways to sustain growth. Studies conducted by founders Philippe Adaime, Samir Abdelmalak, Gabriel Debbane, Jad Bitar and Joanne Karkour back in 2003 revealed a tremendous regional potential for food processing. Lebanon might lack the capacity or climate for cash crops, but its people have the experience in processing and preserving what’s available at hand. Further study revealed that the best way to market locally produced foods in Europe and North America was via a fair trade label. ‘Fair trade’ came to Lebanon not as a foreign ethos, but as a home-grown strategy to reinvigorate the countryside.

The purpose of the organisation is straightforward: help local producers using traditional Lebanese methods to find new markets and receive a fair salary for their efforts. ‘We don’t want to go out and teach people to make fig jam; we want to identify people who already know, and help them adapt it to the modern market’, said Berger. This means helping to control producers’ costs, telling producers how to alter their methods to meet some international standards, providing packaging and discovering buyers. FTL follows a product from the fields in Baalbek to store shelves in Europe.

A family producing jam in the south, for instance, faces several problems in trying to sell their product in the Beirut market. First is just finding a shop that’ll buy. Second is remuneration. According to Firas Hamdan, Merchandising Manager for TSC supermarkets, local producers receive payment between 45 and 60 days after delivery. For the small producer, the time that passes from the initial capital they put into creating the product – whether it’s jam, olive oil or pickles – to receiving their earnings is oftentimes prohibitive. And some retailers are unscrupulous: ‘We know stores,’ notes Randa El Chemali, Marketing Coordinator for FTL, ‘that wait until the product is sold to pay back the producer... People don’t have easy transport to Beirut; they can’t do the financial follow-up that’s necessary.’ Third, local products are more expensive, by 15-20% in TSC stores.

Since its inception in 2006, FTL has grown alongside the very Lebanese producers it has helped to support. It’s developed with all the trimmings of a homegrown movement – both the good and bad. ‘Little by little we acquired experience, for instance, on packaging,’ Berger stated. ‘Olive oil bottles with a plastic cap can’t be exported to Europe; the European partner just says “no, we can’t sell this.” Then there’s new regulations for tea bags – you can’t use staples.’ It took time just to acquire the international credibility necessary just to market products abroad as fair trade. ‘We’ve just become a member of the World Fair Trade Organization, which took us a long time. When we first emailed them, they asked, “who are you?’”

FTL sees opportunities not just internationally, but locally as well. ‘When people taste our pomegranate molasses, they say, “Oh! It’s just like my grandmother would make!’” says Benoit. TSC Signature Downtown already carries local products, Hamdan notes. When asked about their prospects, he was adamant: ‘There’s a taste and quality difference between the commercial and homemade. We’re all Lebanese. We’ve lived in a traditional culture. That’s why people will buy these products.

Article is online here.