Author: Pascal Aubrée, Gianluca Brunori Type of short supply chain addressed
Brin d’Herbe is a group of 20 farmers, which for 20 years have been selling “cottage” and “organic” products in two stores on the outskirts of Rennes . Main products are meat (60 % of the turnover), fruit & vegetables, bakery, dairy products, cheeses, eggs, honey, cider. Their market can be quantified as about 1000 consumers per week. The shop opens three days a week. The turnover is 1,5 million Euro per year.
Photo: Brin d’Herbe farm shop
(author: Pieter van de Graaf)
To run the shop, farmers are organized into a into a specific form of
association that allows them to keep their identity and operational
autonomy vis a vis consumers, and at the same time to define a common space of coordination. This aspect is also a regulatory
requirement, as in this way the shop can be classified as a‘direct selling’
activity. The legal status of the organisation is a "GIE = Groupement d'Interet Economique" (economic interest group). In addition, Brin d'Herbe runs a cooperation with limited liability which enables retail activities.
To conciliate the need of managing common operations and of having a ‘direct selling’ profile, which give some regulatory advantages (e.g. only 9 % tax rate in comparision with 26 % in retail), farmers have adopted some organizational solutions.
They hire people to work at the shop, but at least one of the farmers guarantees his/her presence in the shop as well (to improve exchanges with the consumers about the products). They have a labour time bank (linked to the turnover of each producer). The more
produce a farmer sells in the shop, the more time he/she should invest into the shop. Every kind of work (communication, repairs, etc.) is valued the same. In general, each of them dedicates one day a week to the shop. Pictures of all associated farmers are displayed in the shops.
The software to register sales can read on the barcode of the products the name of producers. On the top of the invoice is written "Brin d'Herbe", but next to each listed product there is a code which indicates the producer. Prices are set by individual farmers, although there is internal communication about price policies. However, there is not much overlap among farmers with regard to products sold, so in shop competition is avoided.
The Shop is only a part of the total farm’s sales. Our host, for example, Sylvie Forel, who produces apples and cider, sells only 10% of her produce in the shop. Other farmers sell up to 90 % of their produce in the shop.
The food
from the 20 core farms is never owned by Brin d'Herbe. It is owned by the producers until it is sold to the consumers. Each farmer is responsible for delivering his/her own products to the shop and take home leftovers. The goods from another 50 associated farms, carefully selected on the basis of their production methods and after on- farm "inspection" by Brin d'Herbe, is sold "on consignment" ("depots-vendeurs").
Additional (fair trade) products are bought by the cooperation with limited liability of Brin d'Herbe and then sold to the consumers. These form about 10 % of the sales.
46 They have chosen not to be only organic (2/3 of the producers are organic now ; at the beginning it was 50%). But this is not a problem when they sell fresh products, as there is no overlapping of categories (either organic or conventional), but it has created a problem of external communication, as they need to give a coherent image of themselves to the outside. They have solved this problem by activating an external audit ("NESO") that controls a cluster of indicators against social, energy, environment and origin criteria. Consumers are involved in the audit process. They are repeated every 3-4 years. The results of the audits for each participating farm are communicated to consumers via leaflets in the shop. The labels for organic and non- organic products have different colours (green for organic and white for the others).
The shops takes a margin of 9 % on every product sold. This money is used to pay the five employees (together 4 full-time jobs) and to finance investments. The shop room is rented from a farmer, the interieur is owned by Brin d'Herbe. Many of the hired staff are farmers’ wives.
Common decisions are taken during periodical assemblies every 4 - 6 weeks. They are organized
also into working groups. At the moment, the operational groups are a) communication; b) labour; c) taste/quality.
Decision making, says our host, is a time consuming activity, and sometime difficult. However, they have managed to carry on their activity for 20 years. They have also chosen not to expand, although there is potential for growth. They think, that 20 farms is a good size to cooperate. In fact, they are concerned about the increase of complexity of the business.
The group is member of the FRCIVAM network. http://www.brindherbe35.fr/Accueil/Accueil.htm l
Brin d’Herbe farm shop
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