Fair Trade Organization Recognized With Business Excellence Award

VICTORIA—Level Ground Trading has been named the Vancouver Island Small Business of the Year at the Business Examiner’s 2007 Vancouver Island Business Excellence Awards.

“This award is very comprehensive; it recognizes all the components of what we do.” said Stacey Toews, Director of Community Engagement and Level Ground co-owner. “Over 10 years, the question has always been, ‘Yeah, they’re nice, but do they know how to run a business?’ We’re encouraged that this award acknowledges the way we consider all the triple bottom line components.”

At the awards ceremony on Jan. 31, the Business Examiner noted the small business category, with the most nominees, was the most hotly contested. The Business Examiner award acknowledges Level Ground Trading’s work including:

• Trade relationship accountability, which involves being accountable to producers and setting standards for distribution of money in order to better answer that big question: “How much money does the farmer get?”
• Waste reduction initiatives, such as: EnviroTote coffee packaging, 13 streams of recycling, (where on a weekly basis less than one grocery bag of garbage is created) biodegradable coffee cups at trade shows and café accounts, and a post-consumer reclamation program that allows customers to return empty coffee packages.
• Innovation and improvements to the business to empower Level Ground employees with everything from a new staff structure to a focus on education and training; to increased connectedness in the global community by having staff visit producer countries and events related to the broader Fair Trade movement; and to better communicate the impact of Fair Trade through new packaging.
• Successful growth of the business, including a 22 per cent increase in sales in 2007, addition of 200 new wholesale accounts and new partnerships as well as increased staffing levels, facilities and production equipment.
• Environmental and community contributions, including “green” initiatives for staff such as green field trips and encouraging green commuting choices; support for the environment in producer regions through employment of agronomists; and partnership with many different events and non-profit fundraisers in the local community such as Dragon Boat Festival, Organic Islands, Symphony Splash and the Saanich Fair.

The Business Examiner’s Vancouver Island Business Excellence Awards, the largest business awards on the Island, have been celebrating business excellence across Vancouver Island for over 24 years.

Level Ground Trading is a Victoria-based Fair Trade Organization whose mission is to trade fairly and directly with small-scale producers in developing countries, and to market their products in North America offering customers ethical choices. Level Ground has Direct Fair Trade relationships with producers in five countries: Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Tanzania and Ethiopia. The company markets coffee, dried tropical fruit and cane sugar wholesale to grocery stores, health food stores, Fair Trade and gift stores, cafes, offices, health and natural food distributors and non-profit fundraisers. The company was founded in 1997.

For more information on Level Ground Trading, visit www.levelground.com. The document submitted in support of Level Ground’s nomination for this award can be reviewed at http://www.levelground.com/files/docs/business_excellence_award.pdf

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Media Contacts:

Rich Farr, Marketing Manager
Level Ground Trading
(250) 544-0932
rich@levelground.com

Steve Weatherbe
Editor, Business Examiner
(250) 381-3926 ext. 257