Alain Valenza (47) was born in Paris to Italian parents. His father worked in the building trade, while his mother was a seamstress. The youngest of five children, he got a CAP trade proficiency certificate as a machinist-fitter and went straight into the workplace at 17 years of age, starting out in the weights and measures sector working for a well-anchored scales manufacturer. He moved from field technician for the after-sales services to department head for Paris and then to technical sales advisor for supermarket and hypermarket distribution.
“After giving 14 years of my life to the Group, in 1990 I moved on and joined an Ardèche-based company and stayed with them for the next 11 years, first as technical sales advisor and then as key account manager, including the La Bovida account. In 2001, I moved to the family-run La Bovida where I am now Ile-de-France regional director. The company was founded by the Hennel family back in 1921. It started out by processing beef tripe then added a
hand-rubbing step with exotic herbs and spices and blends of other additives for sausage-makers and tripe retailers. La Bovida has been headquartered in Bourges since 2002; we now have an 8000 reference catalogue including packaging, paper, tableware, cutlery, ham slicers, food choppers and mincers, ovens, weighing instruments, household cleaning products, work clothing, cookery books, and much more. Mr Hervé Hennel is Chairman, presiding a company that boasts over 18 retail stores throughout France and 320 staff and which posts a turnover in excess of €45M. Our main product families are: packages and trays, spices, kitchen utensils, home-use kitchen equipment. Our customer base is comprised of 60% conventional food retailers, 30% institutional catering, cafeterias and food outlets, and 10% supermarket distribution.
We have created www.bovida.com as a business web portal that centralizes orders in Bourges – orders are delivered within 3 days. We have also created a link for general public consumers offering a range that is differentiated from the business offer. e-commerce purchases to public consumers and co-operatives are on the rise. e-commerce is a great way to broaden the customer base, particularly on export markets (5%-8% of our buyers). Over the last 5 years, La Bovida has strongly focused its strategy towards new technologies, with IT, the Internet, Intranet, messaging, application software, administrative tools, etc. We’ve been at Rungis since 1970, and we’re looking for larger premises (in either the meat or the poultry pavilion) to cover our expansion needs. For La Bovida, Rungis is a unique strategic cornerstone
