Translations

CROC LA VIE favors proximity in the value chain

6. Clients and consumers

Client and consumer relations

Sector Food-processing

Year 2013

Country France

Transmitter

Context

Created in 2009, Croc La Vie offers daycare centers from the Nord-pas de Calais region “home-made” meals that are prepared with 100% organic, quality and in-season products. Through children, who are at the heart of parents' concerns, the manager wants to educate the whole family about the issues of culture and eating behaviors. Social and environmental impacts are systematically taken into account in the company's strategy and in simple daily decisions, in the same way as purely economic criteria.

Objectives

To educate families about issues of eating culture and the environnement
To offer healthy meals that are conceived responsibly

APPROACH

The company, created by Anthony Beharelle, comes within the scope of a precise projet: improving eating behaviors, that are to be recentered around pleasure, sharing and health.

Croc La Vie conceives, in partnership with early childhood professionals, “tailor-made” menus that are adapted to the needs of each age group. By choosing 100% organic, local and in-season products, the company comes within the scope of a responsible logic: respecting the environment and biodiversity, searching for the “real taste” through “home-made” products, and selecting quality food. At its own level, the company educates daycare centers and families about good eating behaviors.

To finance its company, the manager appeals to several community investment clubs (called “clubs cigales”) from the region. Thus, he favors short financing circuits, public accountability of the use of funds and a civic and democratic reappropriation of the economy.

On a social level, Croc La Vie promotes the creation of jobs for people who have trouble getting one (handicapped people, senior citizens, long-time unemployed). It chooses to work with professional integration companies such as Main Forte, specialized in the transport of goods, and to fight isolation. The Manager was also trained to manage discrimination in hiring, and he uses tue LUCIDE method when recruiting.

At the end of 2011, the company implemented a specific collection within the company for organic waste which is sent to Sequedin'sanaerobic digestion plant to be recycled. The punnets used for the meals are not thrown away but collected in daycare centers. Nutripack will then crush them to recycle the plastic material.

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

Turnover multiplied by 5 between 2009 and 2013
Customer retention rate: 100%
Consumers: 95% of parents satisfied
Winner of Nord Entreprendre (2010)
Finance Solidaire “Coup de coeur” Prize (2010)
CREENSO 1st prize (Ieseg Network, 2011)

Benefits

Shareholders: civic involvment in a local project
Food safety for customers
Organic farming: preservation of soils, biodiversity, water resources of the country
6 permanent contracts created for people who have trouble getting a job, including 2 delivery people at the end of their integration contract
350 kg/week of organic waste recycled thanks to anaerobic digestion