MAKING THE LEBANESE CUCUMBER
By Steven Biggs
Contributing Editor, Country Guide Magazine
March 2008
GEORGES ABOUMERHI MADE THE LEBANESE CUCUMBER. Not a plant breeder or a botanist, nor even a seed salesman, Georges has made the Lebanese cucumber a market success because he is a cultural ambassador.
At their greenhouses at Les Cedres, just off busy Highway 20 west of Montreal, Georges and his wife Francine grow the small, sweet cucumbers that are so popular in the Middle East but are rarely seen in much of Canada.
Despite their commitment to learning everything there is to know about how to grow Lebanese cucumbers, however, there’s no secret what drives the Aboumerhi’s success. It isn’t production, it’s marketing. Specifically, it is Georges’ zeal for the culture and food of Lebanon that has attracted a loyal customer base among Lebanese immigrants and Canadian-born consumers alike.
A teacher before getting into agriculture, he now inspires Canadians to learn about great food and how to enjoy it. “I love all food,” Georges says, teaching me how to crack almond shells with my teeth, and then showing me how well these raw almonds go with beer. Then I learn that cousa, traditional in Lebanese cuisine, is a small, light-green zucchini, similar to vegetable marrow, and I’m told that if I want the very best baklava, the secret is using butter made with sheep’s milk.
It turns out that this is just the start of my education. What’s not to love about something like mezze, I learn. Pronounced “maza,” it is a course of appetizers on small plates, often served with a drink of arak, an aniseed-flavoured liquor. The appetizers can include dishes like eggplant flavoured with sesame, pita bread for dipping, taboule, hummus — and, of course, Lebanese cucumbers. Diced and mixed with strained yoghurt, mashed garlic, and mint, his cucumbers make a very cooling salad.
Each dish is not only a food experience, it’s a market opportunity that in Canada is largely untapped.
As a cultural ambassador, Aboumerhi takes an interest in other foods and cultures too. Being open to trying new things helped him make the shift to a career in agriculture. His approach to food is like his approach to life and work: Share and enjoy.
Shift into agriculture
Today the Aboumerhis have grown their operation to 24 greenhouses, shipping 30,000 five-kilogram boxes of cucumbers annually. This is a big step forward from the 10 to 15 boxes a day that he sold when starting in 1985. Stores that sold only English cucumbers when he first approached them now give half their cucumber shelf space to Lebanese cucumbers — and the product sells so well that he had one merchant stop selling English cucumbers altogether.
Aboumerhi enjoys the sales and marketing side of the business too, which means finding buyers for those 30,000 boxes of cucumbers. This is the people side of the business — and he enjoys people. A gregarious man, he quickly learns about others by asking questions and by being an interested listener.
How did a teacher end up in agriculture? There is an agricultural connection in the family, though not cucumbers. The family grew bananas and oranges in Lebanon. It was a family that also taught that great food is an essential ingredient in a great life.
Georges credits his diverse education for being able to understand the technical aspects of growing while making good business choices. “It is good to have a mix of arts and sciences,” he says. Francine, too, has a non-agricultural background, but one that prepared her to deal effectively with the technical aspects of the business: She is a graduate nurse.
These, it quickly becomes apparent, are the three vital ingredients in the Aboumerhi’s story; production skills, passion for their product, and a love of people.
The Lebanese cucumber
What are these cucumbers? They are small, sweet cucumbers with an edible skin. Mini-cucumbers (often called Persian cucumbers by Iranians) are known as Lebanese cucumbers in Montreal thanks to Aboumerhi’s tireless promotion of his product, which he calls Lebanese cucumbers.
Back in 1985 he chose to grow these cucumbers because nobody else in the area was producing them. Today they are more widely grown, often shipped into Quebec from out of province.
Canada’s largest Lebanese community is in Montreal, with many first-generation members as a result of the ongoing strife in Lebanon. Canada-wide, only 10 per cent of Lebanese immigrants came to Canada before 1971, making this is a community with very recent links to its homeland traditions. This is also an educated community, more likely than the rest of the Canadian population to have a university degree. It is differentiated too by its food shopping habits. Middle Eastern Canadians spend less at supermarkets and more at specialty stores, generally spending more on fresh than on processed foods.
The Lebanese community sounds like a great client base, but Georges no longer sells to it directly. This wasn’t how it started, of course, but when he decided to market his cucumbers as a premium product, based on taste and pesticide-free status, he made small fruit and vegetable stores his main retailers, including greengrocers at the downtown Jean Talon market. His Lebanese customers still know where to get his cucumbers.
The challenges
There have been challenges, though, like losing his largest customer. This loss helped him evaluate the business and focus on smaller stores. As he recounts that challenge he says, “It’s no use producing something if you don’t have a good price for it.” Along with a broader customer base, another advantage of smaller stores is that he can deal directly with storeowners instead middlemen or buyers. This more intimate relationship helps him compete against a cheaper, inferior product.
Refocusing towards smaller stores was a big challenge. So was switching from conventional to pesticide-free production. It took eight years of experimenting and working closely with agronomists to reach this goal. Now he uses the fact that the cucumbers are pesticide-free to get a better price, encouraging retailers to use signs that tell consumers the cucumbers are pesticide-free and locally grown.
What about retailers who try to push his price too low? He can walk away, and he does. He will also challenge reluctant retailers to put his product on the shelf and charge more than other cucumbers.
What’s missing here?
What Lebanese food does he miss the most? “Nothing,” Georges says. He has many family members in the region, and a strong Lebanese and Middle-Eastern community in Montreal. All his comfort foods are provided for, supplied by other entrepreneurs filling this niche. He tells me about the best baklava in Eastern Canada, made by a Montreal family that has been making Lebanese pastries for 160 years: “You pay the price, you pay $20 a kilo, but you know what you’re eating.”
Olives, figs, almonds can’t be grown here. However, other key foods, which may or may not be domestically opportunities, include cousa, herbs such as mint and purslane, pita bread for dipping or filling, lamb meat, dairy products made from sheep or goat’s milk, and lots of legumes like lentils, fava beans, and chickpeas. Canadian-grown or not, they are all available in Montreal.
His advice for would-be specialty growers is straightforward. Investigate the market, he says. “Grow a product for which you can get a good price.”
Aboumerhi takes delight in food and culture. “What is your favourite dish?” I quickly ask. His answer comes back just as fast. “Italian food and red wine!” Georges says. It shouldn’t be a surprise. His approach to food mirrors his approach to life, which is to share and to enjoy.
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