In the Eure, the solidarity vegetable Les Petites l’Ouches is in full expansion!

2023-07-28 08:05:45

Installed in the Couture area, in Bernay, the association Les Petites l’Ouches opened in September 2022. Its canning and organic vegetable business employs fourteen employees on integration contracts plus five on permanent contracts. In ten months, more than 50,000 jars came off its production lines. For director Delphine Vandermeersch, the objectives have been achieved except for the vegetable section, which offers pre-cut and vacuum-packed fresh vegetables. The reason comes from their main target, communities that are looking above all for price.

There are fifty-one partner producers who deliver Les Petites l’Ouches from the five departments of Normandy: “They bring us part of their production as a service. We transform them and they collect the jars to resell them at the farm or to their distributors. We also have their vegetables for our own brand. We then resell our eleven recipes through about fifteen brands including Vie Claire, the Biocoop of Évreux, Rouen and Lisieux, the Comptoir du bio plus a few grocery stores in Normandy. They are selling very well to such an extent that we have run out of them. For this season, we are going to have to increase our production, because in 10 months, we have achieved more than 100% of our objectives and maintained our financial balance except for vegetables. But that’s normal, because we had to ensure the proper functioning of the cannery, which generates more margin and ensures the sustainability of jobs. We need daily work during this launch period,” explains Delphine Vandermeersch.

Objective of 100,000 jars in 2024

Les Petites l’Ouches also aims to supply collective catering (schools, colleges, high schools, retirement homes, nursing homes, company restaurants) in order to deliver raw or processed vegetables (grated, sliced, peeled, etc.). But, “today we only have six customers who are not always regular. There are two reasons for this. First, we haven’t had time to build relationships with the chefs yet. It is a job that is done over time, because for them, there is an administrative job to reference us. In addition, they must also adapt their recipes to our seasonal vegetables. It is necessarily an additional workload in a context where they do not always have the time. This is why we are going to hire a sales manager in September,” explains the director.

The second point is that of the price that elected officials from the Intercom Bernay Terre de Normandie have denounced: “I visited the vegetable shop, but if it does not fit into our prices, it will not do,” said Françoise Canu, mayor of Menneval to our colleagues from Paris-Normandy. There, Delphine Vandermeersch recognizes and affirms these price differences, “like frozen sliced ​​carrots that come from abroad at 50 cents a kilo. Where are the vitamins? Where do they come from? It takes more to make the same dish and they have no taste. Kids mostly don’t eat them. We cannot compare our home-grown carrots at 2.30 euros per kilo. Even though parents watch their budgets, they want their children to eat well and to know where the food comes from. This is part of the attractiveness of a territory. So, when we talk about the Egalim law, it should be imposed that organic is also local. Thus, elected officials will be able to defend local jobs.

With a target of 100,000 jars in 2024, the association Les Petites l’Ouches will continue its development with also “the hiring of an engineer on a work-study contract, in charge of agri-food mission who will work on new recipes and also dishes cooked, of the type to be consumed quickly for customers such as associative cafés, hotels and a few stores” announces Delphine Vandermeersch.