Inspirational ideas: "Semi-short" supply chain offers fair price for farmers

French association les Eleveurs de Saveurs Iséroises connects all partners in the food system

“Semi-short" supply chain offers fair price for farmers

In 2009, livestock farmer Clément Guillaud from the Isère region in France saw his meat prices drop. Knowing he could no longer live on his current income, he knew he had to rethink his supply chain in an innovative way. He wanted to increase profit and reduce costs without compromising the quality of his meat or increasing environmental impact. Clément: “I found out that one of the ways to gain more profit is by direct selling and semi-direct selling, I could make from 0.40€ to 0.50€ more per kilo of carcass weight per animal”. He also discovered that regional butchers were looking to buy high quality regional meat to respond to consumer demands. As a solution for everyone involved in the food chain, Clément and the butchers established a new type of sustainable “semi-short" supply chain.

The ‘Association des éleveurs de Saveurs Iséroises’ was established in 2014 and consisted of 15 local Charolais and Limousines breeders. They started to work with 4 ‘gourmet’ butchers. The aim of the association was to connect all partners in the food system to provide superior quality meat in the Isère region. Clément: “Direct selling takes up a lot of time for the farmer, now the association takes care of logistics and marketing, allowing us to focus on our cattle and also allowing us to sell more”.

The association has instated specified requirements for the supply chain which ensure sustainability. Accordingly Clément feeds his cows with grass and cereals from his farm as much as he can and he does not use silage maize during the finishing period or genetically modified crops. “No imported soybeans for my cows,” he smiles. This ensures meat quality, environmental protection and animal welfare. At the same time it reduces the costs for the producers as they are less dependent on feed suppliers. The animals from all of the farms in the association are transported to a local slaughterhouse in Grenoble, contributing to the prosperity of the local community.

Over the past few years, the association has grown to 30 producers and the partners have been looking to create new value chains. Since 2017, they now deliver to local school canteens and to supermarkets in the Isère region.

In 2015, the association joined the Operational Group SYAM that supports food systems based on “semi- short" supply chains to re-establish a local sustainable agri-food economy by strengthening their competitiveness. Currently, the Operational Group is preparing a number of case studies to analyse these new food systems, setting up methods and tools to do deal with the impact that the association’s expansion has on management, quality, costs and logistics.

Clément: “In the future, our experience could be transferable to other farmers through the results of SYAM and could help them to develop their supply chains quicker and ensure that they are well-organised.”

Clément concludes: “In this story there are only winners: the farmers get a fair price, the butchers and supermarkets know what they are selling and consumers will get high quality meat from their own region.”

More information on the Operational Group SYAM

Pictures - copyright: European Commission.

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