At the age of eighteen he joined his grandfather in Paris, hoping to start work. The latter, a retired Colonel from the French Colonial Army, was a trader in fruits and vegetables at Les Halles des Paris, supplying, in particular, the Assistance Publique - Hopitaux de Paris.

"I worked under his orders as an employee for a good ten years or so. We worked from nine o'clock in the evening to two o'clock the following afternoon A poorly paid and tedious job - a long way from the 35-hour week! Then we got transferred to Rungis Market. In 1975, I left my grandfather's company to work at Simonelli Père et Fils. As he was close to retirement, Mr. Simonelli sold me his shares and we set up a new business entity, the company Promafruit. A traditional, trading floor, wholesale company targeting the retail trade, we mainly sold tomatoes and clementines from Morrocco. At that time we were just a five-person team. The company expanded during 1982-83 with the advent of the Corsican leafed clementine, a very high-quality product. At this time, I met Corsican citrus fruit growers who were looking for a representative at Rungis Market. We started with small volumes (80 metric tons), then, with our trade relations operating smoothly, we went up to 3,000 metric tons two years later. In 1998, my business partner retired and I became sole company manager. The company currently employs about fifteen people. From this time on, we started to import other products from Morrocco. During the 2002/2003 campaign, our sales came to 14,000 metric tons (including tomatoes, vegetables and citrus fruits) and we hope to reach 20,000 metric tons for 2003/2004; to which must be added 6,000 metric tons of grapes from Italy and 2,500 metric tons of clementines from Corsica.

As regards the latter, we voluntarily decided to reduce our volumes in favour of higher quality and a top-of-the-range product sold under our brand name Kallisté. We also deal in melons from France and Spain. Our clientele breaks down as 70% GMS, 20% export (Germany and Eastern European countries) and 10% of traditional sector trade in France (retailers and semi-wholesalers). We also have a branch in Perpignan manned by two salespeople that supplies provincial wholesalers. We are members of the CSCGFL (French Association of Fruit and Vegetable Wholesalers) and the CSIF (Association of French Fruit and Vegetable Importers), with whom we signed the quality charter CSIF'Partenariat. To keep and, in particular, develop one's clientele means specialising and positioning the company on specific markets. These days, it is impossible to sell anything and everything. The company has to adapt to the clientele, but to do this, Rungis must maintain its great appeal as a platform. The market for fruits and vegetables is highly sensitive and unpredictable and we, as operators, have to follow its trends at every turn." It should be noted that the Corsican clementine has a very short season, not exceeding two months. This strong growth pushed us to broaden the range of our clientele and look for new outlets, including GMS.