How did the business start ?

My father Michel Chemouni set up the company. Born in Bône (Algeria), he was the son of an upholsterer, who came to France with his family when he was 9 years old (in 1954). He started working when he was 16, selling photographic equipment in Paris, before joining a farm insurance company. After doing his military service, he worked for a fruit and vegetable carrier from Les Halles de Paris for three years before going to work for a fruit and vegetable importer at Rungis Market in March 1969, where he was initially in charge of logistics, before moving to sales. In 1978, he set up the company CS Fruits with a partner and one secretary.

How did the company develop  ?

At first, my father imported Dutch produce (tomatoes, sweet peppers, apples, pears, etc.) representing 90% of the offer. In 1979, he continued the business on his own and my mother Josette helped him with the accounts and administrative tasks. In those days, there were many retailers and the competition was very fierce.
One day, my father was contacted by a Cypriot company looking for an agent to promote and distribute its products in France. The contact followed an article published in a Swiss fruit and vegetable magazine that had mentioned us. This was the start of an important wholesale trade, delivering fruit and vegetables that used to arrive by ship in Antwerp and Rotterdam. It represented just over 40,000 packets per day compared to 30,000 packets per month previously. It involved oranges, tomatoes, lemons, grapefruit, etc. The low cost price allowed my father to compete seriously with products from Morocco and Israel.

When did you start positioning the business ?

Between 1990 and 1995, the company shifted towards more specific products like Brussels sprouts, cucumber, sweet pepper and fennel, then gradually small red fruit and off-season products, like cherries from Chile and South Africa, or peaches, nectarines, grapes and clementines from South America. On my arrival in 2000, the company was starting to move into niche products like aromatic herbs, mini-vegetables, shoots, mini-fruit, berries, micro-vegetables and various products from Thailand. After I took over as manager in 2005, I steered the company further towards these niche products, where there is a growing demand, particularly in the catering trade. Actually, this policy followed a demand by a client who absolutely wanted micro-vegetables. We did everything to satisfy him at the time and it turned out to be a new challenge for us and a new opening. Today, we have exclusive agreements with several suppliers.

These products represent a very broad range that demands a lot of research and follow-up work. You can do a world tour with three packets of micro-vegetables. They offer savours and aromas that are still relatively unknown and even the most informed professionals are surprised. The products are starting to become more known and available, which is good for our company. However, we constantly have to discover new products to stay in the avant-garde on this market, which is opening up more and more. Under our “Final Touch” brand, we supply just over 600 clients (85% in France) including wholesalers from Rungis and the provinces and a good number of semi-wholesalers. We also supply the retail trade a little, via our subsidiary, Fina Fruits. We are also gearing up to export, which is a market with growth opportunities. Today, we note that clients are more positioned on service and less on price. Because of the dimensions, we can put a hundred of these products on one pallet and that interests clients.

How do you see the fruit and vegetable market ?

People will obviously carry on buying fruit and vegetables. However, we have moved into a segmentation that increasingly leans towards ready-made fresh and processed lines, where the demand is very high among local authorities and households too, who have considerably changed their eating habits. This could clearly represent a threat of lost clientele for professionals like us. Yet we remain confident.

What do you think of Rungis Market ?

Rungis Market is definitely a wonderful showcase, which has to stay at the cutting edge of innovation to continue existing, because at Rungis, everything is possible, everything is realizable. However, to guarantee the future of this lovely tool that has existed for 40 years, solutions need to be found to attract or retain the clientele. This market’s vocation is to be open to the clientele and, in the long term, it is not just to be a distribution platform.