Putting money where the mouth is – Lebanon’s boutique foods

Lebanon, with its limited, varied terrain and lack of cheap labor, will never be an ideal environment for mass-production. However, Lebanon is ideally positioned to “go boutique.” There are already boutique hotels and Lebanon is considered a boutique wine producer, so why not other boutique products? Why not, indeed. Local entrepreneurs are catching on, and are capitalizing on Lebanon’s strengths—its climate, its educated workforce, and its historic ties with Europe—and producing high-quality fine foods. In the case of Le Ferme St. Jacques, a duck farm nestled alongside a monastery in the mountain village of Bechtoudar and the Arab world’s only producer of foie gras and gourmet duck products, the farm was developed in 2001 as a pilot project to help in the revival of the northern economy. The entire operation at St. Jacques could be called a French import. The staff was trained in France, all of their equipment was