How Palestinian olive oil broke down a barrier

Occupied territories aren't the best backdrop for business...or are they? Heather Masoud tells Anna Simpson about the world's first fair trade oil.

From the steep terraces of Jenin to the heights of Gilboa, you hear the sound of strings and stamping feet. It’s just a murmur at first, but with every beat there’s more vigour as the dabke takes off. The leader waves his beads like olives in the breeze, and local kids gather round. Their cousins have journeyed home, the harvest is in, and the festivities have begun. For Mohammed Isa of the Anin Co-op for Olive Oil Production, there are more reasons to celebrate the harvest this year than in the past. For the first time, his oil will be sold with Fairtrade certification. This means he’ll sell more of it, at a higher price, to a wider clientele – and so be able to invest in next year’s production. And he’s proud, too, to be part of the world’s first initiative for fair trade olive oil.

“Olive oil was seen as a developed country product, so it wasn’t on the fair trade radar”

When Heather Masoud and Cathi Pawson first contacted the Fairtrade Foundation about Palestinian olive oil, back in 2004, they didn’t get much of a response. “It was seen as a developed country product – from Italy or Greece,” explains Masoud, “so it wasn’t on their radar.”

The two women, who originally met through a permaculture course, had just returned from a spell as peace volunteers in the West Bank. They’d both been struck by the prevalence of the olive tree – “there are terraces everywhere!” – and its central role in Palestinian culture. But they had also met olive farmers who were unable to access markets due to restrictions on movement imposed by the Israeli occupation – and were determined to do something constructive.

“It was a combination of the warmest hospitality I’ve ever received and the scale of the injustice,” explains Masoud, who is married to a dabke dancer from Gaza. “We met farmers who’d lost trees to Israeli settlements and whose land had been cut off by the [‘security’] wall. You’d look up and see this swimming pool, golf course sort of environment, and then down in the villages you’d turn the taps and there’d be no water. In a very British way, we were thinking, ‘Surely if something’s illegal you can pick it up with someone and change it…’”

They soon realised that it wasn’t quite as simple as that. But while the politics might be frozen, perhaps trade could offer hope. So once back in Britain, they explored options. At first they assumed that the sort of fair trade groups who’d bought Nicaraguan coffee would be a natural market for Palestinian olive oil.

But initial research was discouraging. They couldn’t find a single outlet for olive oil imported from the West Bank. Fair trade group Equal Exchange had been discouraged by a previous attempt in which the oil was blighted by high levels of acidity and had to be sold as soap. Oxfam weren’t even considering it. “We couldn’t find anyone who was planning to import it in the next few years,” recalls Masoud, “so we thought we’d give it a go.”

Today, just four years down the line, the pair are directors of Zaytoun CIC, a community interest company which takes its name from the Arabic for ‘olive’. It’s the first UK company to import olive oil and other produce from Palestine, and the first in the world to win both organic and Fairtrade accreditation for it. The combined achievements helped Masoud win the 2009 Women in Ethical Business Awards, sponsored by Triodos Bank.

Zaytoun’s first order was for just 200 bottles from the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee, earmarked for friends and family. “A word-of-mouth thing happened,” says Masoud. “Those bottles just disappeared.”

Then they began to market it more widely. Six weeks later, their second order was for 5,000 bottles. “To make it worthwhile, we asked people to buy a minimum of 24 bottles, and to pay for it upfront.” For some bulk buyers – from Palestinian solidarity groups to small ethical shops like FairDo’s in Cardiff – this was a real act of faith, investing thousands of pounds in an unproven enterprise.

“The Palestinians don’t have any control of their own borders, which can be turned on or off at a whim,” says Masoud, “so in the first year we couldn’t bring the oil in quickly enough [to meet demand].” Now, such delays are planned for, and the company over-orders to keep a healthy stock in the UK.

Masoud and Pawson have even turned the element of risk into a selling point.

“We want the olive oil to be an education medium. It’s a nice way to tell people about what’s happening there, while they’re consuming a delicious product.”

Sympathy for the farmers’ plight helped get Zaytoun off the ground. “We had volunteers coming in to do graphic design, one did labels to meet food trading standards, a Turkish guy lent us some warehouse space for the first import.”

By the end of 2005, it was clear that Zaytoun had too much potential to be run solely on a part-time, voluntary basis. Masoud still had a day job with the local councils of West Berkshire and Islington; Pawson was working for Green Party leader Caroline Lucas – and they were both reaching burn-out.

If they were to keep going, they had to earn a living. So in 2006 they took the plunge and launched Zaytoun as a registered company with a co-operative structure, inspired by other well-known fair trade brands such as Divine and Café Direct.

“Our suppliers were proposing medjoul dates, soap from Nablus, long grain, hand-rolled couscous”

Meanwhile, their suppliers were proposing a little diversification. “They kept saying things like, ‘By the way, do you know that Palestinian dates are amazing?’ They grow medjoul dates in the Jordan valley: big fat, really good ones.”

So they began to buy dates, followed by soap from Nablus, and long grain couscous hand-rolled by a group of women in Gaza – although that fell victim to the Israeli blockade of the territory.

Zaytoun now has two full time members of staff and three part time, including Taysir Arabasi, its director in Palestine. In the last financial year, they imported 80,000 litres of olive oil. This year, with the first Fairtrade-certified harvest bringing onboard new bulk buyers from the Co-op to Equal Exchange, they’re expecting sales to grow by at least 30%.

And as for profit? “At the moment, we’re still covering costs,” says Masoud. “We spent about £30,000 on branding and media work last year! But we aim to be turning a profit in about three years.”

She’s also hopeful that they’ll bring in about £100,000 additional funds over the next year, as a mix of loans and grants. This will allow them to recruit two more staff and set up an office. So far, the company has relied on initial charitable support from The Funding Network, a loan and overdraft from Triodos Bank, and a large network of volunteers and solidarity NGOs giving both their time and their custom.

They would like to offer their producers a stake in Zaytoun, says Masoud, but first “we need to borrow some expertise. We were both very ‘green’ when we set out, with no business or retail experience. We’ve had to learn about customs and excise, import regulations, trading standards … there’s so much we’d like to do better.”

There’s a lot of cross-cultural learning to be done, too. Zaytoun organises exchanges whereby European students go to the West Bank to visit co-operatives at harvest time, and Palestinian farmers come to the UK to speak at Fairtrade Fortnight events, and to learn more about the market. “Fair trade sounds like a nice concept to our producers, but they want to understand why customers would be prepared to pay premiums when you can get very cheap European olive oil.”

Meeting the exacting standards of large-scale European food buyers has been a bit of a learning curve for the producers, too. They have had to grapple with everything from correctly ventilated storage for controlling levels of acidity and peroxide, to submitting their produce for organoleptic (taste) tests. “The farmers have really embraced all of this,” says Masoud. “And they’re very proud of the results.”

They can be proud, too, of the reception from Europe’s taste police. No less an authority than the French olive growers council, Adolive, declared Zaytoun oil to be “Very fine, harmonious in terms of both fragrance and taste … with salad-like hints of green bean [and] young walnut … and a peppery, even spicy finish”.

And while some farmers struggle to adapt to organic methods, for Zaytoun’s producers it was simply business as usual. Most have never been able to afford fertiliser and other chemical inputs, so there was very little to change. “It’s hand-picked, rain-fed agriculture, really suited to the hilly terrain,” Masoud explains. “And these trees take so long to bear fruit that they are passed down from generation to generation.”

Which is why the whole family comes home for the harvest.

16 November 2009

Anna Simpson

Add new comment