How did you start in this business ?

I represent the third generation of market gardeners. In the 1920s, my grandfather, Raymond, then aged 13, set off from the Morvan with his bag to go up to Paris and earn his living as a farm hand. When he was 23, his boss let him purchase a ‘lot’, representing a market garden plot of one hectare, including the equipment (cloches, cold frames, etc.). My father, Raymond, inherited the plot in 1948 and expanded the business to eight hectares. The business dealt in traditional market garden produce (bed lettuces, baby carrots, cauliflower, radishes, celery, leeks, spinach, etc.), which my father used to sell at Les Halles de Paris at the time, before moving to Rungis as soon as it opened. Everything was done manually. My father retired in 1976 and I took over from him.

How did you develop the business ?

I wanted to expand the farm in those days. To do so, I rented land in Gonesse and Garches. But there was no future for long term development. So I decided to move elsewhere. In 1983, I found a farm to let in Saint-Florent (45) with 220 hectares where we are today and we developed our productions (cabbage, leeks, lettuce and especially radishes). Then, over the years, the farm expanded to reach 700 hectares today, divided into ten lots, spread over ten districts around Saint-Florent. This took time and required considerable work to improve the quality of the land. We had to equip ourselves with farm machinery and transport and we now own about a hundred tractors and a dozen articulated lorries for our deliveries.  Even though we are highly mechanized, the harvesting is still done manually for the most part. This is the case with the lettuces, which are hand cut at night for maximum freshness and quality.  Our seasonal personnel are mostly Asian and they are very efficient in this domain, as well as for trussing. Furthermore, we produce our own seedlings in our greenhouse nurseries, which cover one and a half hectares.  
All this has helped us gain market share, because our reputation has been built on the quality of our upmarket products and our know-how. You could say that market gardeners are the architects of quality and freshness. To preserve the family spirit of the old days, my wife, daughter and son, and their spouses, also work in the business.

What is your product line ?

To ensure constant quality, we produce according to reasoned agriculture principles. Our main crops are lettuce (oak leaf, lettuce, Batavia, etc.) with 20 million units harvested (for 27 million planted), 8.5 million bunches of radishes (Parisian bunch of 45 units), 1.2 million bunches of white onions, 480 tons of spinach, 1.4 million bunches of curly parsley, 2.1 million bunches of long carrots (15/20 carrots per bunch). We practice crop rotation and produce cereals and green fertilizers to rotate the soil in order to obtain constant product quality. Similarly, everything is cooled by hydro-cooling and damp cooling for maximum freshness. Lastly, all our packets are labelled and sold under the “Guénot Nature – production France” label.
The vegetable market is a market I really believe in and it is doing quite well, at our level. We have successfully stabilized our sales today, and even gained market share and increased our volumes. We supply about sixty customers, broken down as follows: Rungis Market (48%), wholesaler groups (32%), central purchasing agencies (20%).

What do you think of Rungis Market ?

When Rungis Market opened in 1969, we had a spot on the producers’ floor. However, we lost our space when the new floor was built in 2004 because we were no longer considered as a producer from the Ile-de-France region. At the moment, we sell almost 50% of our production to several Rungis wholesalers, who promote our brand. This represents seven articulated lorries for 100 tons of produce per day, and our sales are growing. Rungis is ideal because it is modern, well-equipped in terms of refrigeration and it has the top professionals.