When did the business start ?

My father was a market gardener for over thirty years. He started in 1979, producing cucumbers for a seed group in Autry-le-Châtel (45). Then he moved to set up in Nogent-sur-Seine (10) in 1985, at first on one hectare in covered greenhouses (glass) where he still produced cucumbers before specializing in standard round tomatoes from 1987 onwards. In the 90s, the farm covered three hectares and my father moved into cherry tomatoes and vine tomatoes for a cooperative that used to supply mass distribution.
In 2004, we left the Aube department to move to Seine-et-Marne, in Chailly-en-Bière (77) so that we could be more independent commercially. At that time, I had joined the family business and my younger brother, Romain, joined us later. We then wanted to develop a qualitative production and to sell it directly at Rungis Market to promote it better and control sales. We started on one hectare of tomatoes with about ten varieties, and half in strawberries with two varieties (gariguette at the start of the season and Mara des bois at the end of the season, depending on the weather).

How do you work ?

First of all, we expanded our range of tomatoes and we now work with about fifteen varieties (traditional vine tomato, cherry tomato, fleshy tomato, Olivette, Cœur de bœuf, Marmande, Rose de Berne, Noire de Crimée, Verte tigrée, Cœur de pigeon, yellow cherry tomato, Cornue des Andes, etc.). We are trying to develop our range of tomatoes to best meet the demand from our clientele. This is why we built an extra half-hectare of greenhouses in the last few months. Everything is done by hand with us, from sowing to picking to packaging. We work in landless farming, on an organic substrate composed of coconut fibre and compost that is changed every year to avoid any bacterial problem. In the same way, our strawberries grow in small pots of compost. At the end of the season, our substrates go off to our neighbours who grow lettuce to enrich their soil. The pollination is completely natural with the installation of beehives inside the greenhouses. We care about the environment so we never use insecticides, pesticides or other chemical plant-

care products because we work according to the principal of integrated biological protection (using natural predators) and our packaging is recyclable. Furthermore, the irrigation is done by drop-feed to avoid wastage. We work by traditional methods to ensure products of perfect, continuous quality and impeccable freshness because our distribution cycle is one of the shortest. The product is the key word with us. We are constantly geared to the taste and organoleptic quality of the products and we do not deviate from that goal.

What do you think of Rungis Market?

We arrived at Rungis Market at the beginning of 2005. As the largest fresh produce market in the world, Rungis is a fabulous place that brings together different worlds of top quality products in a unique breadth of range. Furthermore, the proximity with the clientele represents a serious advantage to market our products in the best way. The Producers’ Floor is a showcase for Ile-de-France production and it is particularly appreciated by the Market’s buyers. It is true that producers contribute to the fame of Rungis by cultivating the quality of the products and by their enthusiasm for their profession.