I was at a social enterprise event recently run by Cityzone, a fantastic network for entrepreneurs. Twelve social entrepreneurs presented their businesses and Jonathan Jenkins of UnLtd and John Bird (always good value) gave talks.
My favourite social enterprise of the evening was Zaytoun, a fair trade company producing and importing olive oil from Palestine.
Do you know that the oldest olive groves in the world are in Palestine and were exported to Greece, Spain, Italy in Roman times?
I also learnt from Atif Choudhury - the activist/director of Zaytoun - something about the challenges of distributing olive oil out of a war-torn area and the need in this case for both Palestinians and Israelis to support in this process. I was reminded of the power of social enterprise and so even today Zaytoun - an embryonic business – is making a real difference by giving villagers an opportunity to earn a living and a reason to avoid the need for more extreme resistance.
What a great example of addressing a social need through the market.
But what struck me most was that Zaytoun is promoted as a great product not as a ‘pity purchase’. The olive oil is a premium product and costs more than alternative brands in supermarkets. Atif is proud of this and promotes Zaytoun for the quality of its taste.
Spot on!
I have ordered a box (looking forward to that). I think Atif’s approach is exactly the right one and you can see this attention to quality in the website too - it looks classy and is good to read.
Social enterprises thrive when they deliver a high quality and relevant service/product for customers. When I go to say Bikeworks, I expect a reliable bike. I want a stimulating read when I pick up a magazine from a Big Issue Vendor and I want a high quality Pentium 4 PC from Computer Aid.
It's a useful reminder for us all as social entrepreneurs that the sure way to create conditions for long-term business success and therefore social impact is to strive continually to deliver quality to our customers. This is what business is about after all.
Pick up some Zaytoun at: http://www.traidcraftshop.co.uk/searchadv.aspx?SearchTerm=zaytoun
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3 comments:
Hi Richard just saw your blog – thank a lot for the enthusiastic words! The Zaytoun journey is a very special and inspiring one in so many different ways, but most inspiring is the lengths to which the Farmers have to take to ensure their survival and their ability to continuing trading despite the continuous pressures of the Occupation. For me, it has always felt difficult sometimes even embarrassing to try and capsulate that energy and adversity in the few minutes that were often asked to explain it in. So I’m glad it came across well. I may not have made it clear but none of us at Zaytoun had come from commercial backgrounds or even an Olive oil one. So it’s wonderful that Zaytoun work has managed to support so many faming co-operatives. The 17 Co-operatives have now reached to allow Zaytoun sales to help support over 25 villages. So were all very grateful to have been given the chance to learn from them.
For the farmers who make up nearly 68% of Palestine population, control of their own economic stability is major step towards self- reliance and self determination both of are impossible to determine because of the severity of the Occupation. So in this sense I would agree that social enterprises, creative solutions and revolutionary hearts and minds may be the only forward thinking steps that people can take ensure that Palestine is able to trade and support its own economy with the pride and dignity that it so rightly deserves.
Have to say the City Zone – Change Game event was a very positive evening and left me feeling quite chuffed with the passion that the audience had for our project. Stronger Still on Thursday we had officially been given the FLO Fair Trade Mark .The Worlds’ first Olive oil to receive it and of course the first produce from Palestine to receive it. So fingers crossed a piece of Palestine under the name Palestine will be coming to all our ‘good supermarkets’! .
Richard, I am also Cc Cathi Pawson and Heather Masoud to this email. Please do get in touch with them if you have more ideas or contacts that you think could help .Both Heather and Cathi are by far the most important lynchpins in all that what Zaytoun has achieved in the UK and their story is really well worth hearing.
Thanks again for all your enthusiasm!
Atif
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Wow, what an inspiring business. I totally agree with your sentiments on quality. Whilst not working in such extreme circumstances, I have been involved with a social enterprise that had a very chaotic work force. We always tried to stay focussed on a quality service and customer satisfaction and found that if you get that right, social outcomes follow. Not easy though and on occasions that we switched our focus to the social outcomes, we really struggled throughout the enterprise.
Simon
I couldn't agree more with your comments on Social enterprises producing high quality goods and services in order to compete Richard.
This it seems is where many SE's are making a serious mistake in thinking it is their social or environmental cause that will win business.
Atif can't praise your work highly enough. If you need PR we have a weekly newsletter with over 4000 reading. You can contact me on martin@network2012.net
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