Training - Level Ground Trading trading fairly and directly to offer your customers ethical choices
Level Ground Trading was founded in 1997 by four Canadian families for the purpose of improving the lives of disadvantaged producers through trade.
Level Ground Trading offers an array of the best possible quality Fair Trade Federation goods, connected to a core set of beliefs
Putting their primary focus on their farmers, product quality, transparency, and the environment.
Direct Fair Trade means they acknowledge the hard work and risk involved with growing and selling crops. To focus on farmers, they:
- create opportunities for economically disadvantaged producers by supporting small scale* producers that live in remote, rural areas
- pay a fair price to farmers and producers
- establish direct trade relationships based on trust and respect by visiting producers regularly
- pay a fair price and invest social premiums in the farmer's community
- support sustainable environmental practices
- promote independence, education and positive work conditions
*small-scale farmers are defined as farmers who have 5 hectares (12 acres) of land or less
They value quality. To build for quality throughout all of their products, they:
- source high quality coffee, fruit and sugar
- invest in quality control and organic practices
- pay the highest price for the highest quality coffee and other products
- cup coffee regularly and publish the results
To operate with transparency and accountability, they:
- publish extensive details for every container purchased
- track trading partnerships for all to view
- provide opportunities for producers and consumers to ask questions, voice opinions and learn more of their practices and Direct Fair Trade via speaking engagements, producer visits and their website
- purchase directly from farmer co-ops and their trading partners
They are committed to sustainable business practices from crop to cup. To support farmers as they nurture their environment and minimize our own footprint at home, they:
- believe in organic, both for the benefits it brings farmers and for the way it makes their own practices more environmentally friendly. They are audited annually by the Pacific Agricultural Certification Society.
- run under a zero-to-landfill mandate at their production facility on Vancouver Island. They use 13 different streams of recycling and compost all organics.
- created a 100% compostable coffee package.
- upcycle their returned packaging. They partner with over 100 stores across Western Canada to assist them in reclaiming their packaging.
Coffee
Level Ground roasts all of their coffees in a fluid bed air roaster. Here are some of the benefits to air roasting that they have found:
- Air roasting times are shorter—the longer & hotter the beans are roasted, the more flavor can escape. Rapid, consistent, convective heat penetration locks in flavor and aroma for a consistent roast and quality of taste.
- Air roasted beans are heated to exactly the same temperature at exactly the same time. Each batch of coffee is roasted to precisely the same temperature yielding coffee batches that are consistent in color, flavor, undertones and aroma.
- Air roasting provides the roaster exact control over each batch of coffee. Beans are roasted to temperature, not to ‘color’.
- Air roasting filters off the chaff (skin) of the coffee bean entirely, meaning that nothing is “burnt” on. This results in a much cleaner bean for a smoother, less bitter taste in the resulting brew.
TEAS
Level Ground Trading currently purchases tea from nine small tea gardens in Assam, India. Each garden is 1 - 3 acres in size and provides the main income for the tea growers and laborers.
The Small Tea Coop is the link between the tea growers and Level Ground Trading. Each year gardens are visited to check on organic practices, meet with laborers, distmribute fair trade premiums and build capacity for tea processing.
Dried Fruit
There are no additives or sulphides used in the preservation process of their fruit; it is preserved simply through air-drying.
Level Ground purchases dried fruit and cane sugar from Fruandes, a Fair Trade organization operating out of Bogotá, Colombia. Fruandes purchases fresh fruit from independent farmers or associations of small-scale farmers.
What began as a desire to caddress the hard-hit coffee community transformed into a dual mission to protect the marginalized women struggling to survive in Cazuca. Today, there are up to 45 women employed by Fruandes during peak fruit processing periods and they receive around nine containers of dried fruit and sugar a year.
Rice
Rice Inc. is Level Ground's trading partner for importing these heirloom rice varieties. Rice Inc is a non-profit organization independent regional cooperative of farmers with 50 - 150 members each selling to RICE Inc.
RICE = Revitalizing Indigenous Cordillera Entrepreneurs.
"Our vision is to alleviate poverty in developing countries through direct fair trade."
uplift the world through a partnership with Level Ground Trading
