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Bonduelle is 42 production sites worldwide, half of which in France. Four brands, the best known of which are bondual and breaksgrain. Bonduelle was a family business that was founded in Villeneuve d’Ascq at the end of the 19th century, introduced on the stock market in 1998, which experienced a lot of difficulties. But recently, you have finally improved the group’s profitability with an increase in operating profit of almost 18% and an increase in the margin. Xavier Unkovic, Managing Director of Bonduelle is the guest Eco de Franceinfo, Wednesday June 25.
Franceinfo: Do your good results mean that people consume more vegetables than before?
This is our wish. Yes of course. This is our goal, it is our mission, to inspire the food transition to a more vegetable diet, good for the health of people but also for the planet. So yes, it is our wish to promote our brands, to promote our products and to ensure that people feast on themselves and find plants as a food that is good, which is a pleasure food, which is a sharing food. So yes, we are fully on the increase in consumption.
In France, preserved vegetable sales accuse a decrease of more than 2.5% in one year, largely competed by frozen, how do you explain it?
Because we don’t always do a great job and that’s why we communicate today. This is why we want to drop ideas that are preconceived, we want to drop taboos, like: there are no preservatives in our preserves. It is not transformed. You can find superb green beans or peas steamed as your grandmother did in her pressure cooker. Here we have big pressure cookers in our manufacturing workshops.
“We want to restore its letters of nobility to this cannery which is not a can.”
Xavier Unkovicon franceinfo
It is a packaging, a packaging that preserves all the nutritional elements, vitamins, minerals, from these plants which are full of benefits for people.
At the same time the products of distributor brands (MDD) that you produce are in free fall, why?
This is their problem …
But it’s yours too since you produce them …
Quite. We render them this service to produce for them, to bring them products. I just want to say that if they are down, we want our brands to progress, to leave the conservatives to the museums. In any case, this is where they are the best, to ensure that somewhere, vegetables and legumes are dynamic in the French market. If we talk about the category and this is our goal, I am sure that distributor brands will benefit. So we will also help them a little.
Except that the distributor brands face a new competition, especially concerning corn from China and that is terrible in terms of image?
It is not terrible in terms of image. It may be terrible in terms of product. We have our products that are made in France …
But how do you know?
You are absolutely right, we do not know. And that’s why Bonduelle is committed and signed up behind “Origin’info” which was enormously supported by the government.
It is a QR code, but for your brands, not for the distributor brands that you produce …
Afterwards, the consumer will choose when he does not find a QR code and when the distributor will not communicate on the origin of his products, he will try to look for a little bit. In any case, he will be right to ask lots of questions.
Today, there is a QR code on Bonduelle products, under your Bonduelle or Cassegrain brands, which allows consumers to know the precise origin of the product?
Exactly, the origin of the product. We want to act in all transparency: the origin of the product, the ability to communicate on our farmers with whom we are a partner, in the north of France for green vegetables, in the south of France and especially in the southwest for corn, because this is where corn in France are cultivated. So yes, we are completely ready to go into exemplary transparency, because somewhere, we have nothing to hide. Simply.
What you want, in Europe in particular, is to increase sales under your own brands and to decrease distributor brands?
We have a different quality with our brands. We have a care taken which is different from that of the distributor brand, since the price is different, so it is justified. So we want to bring quality, health, pleasure, taste to the consumer who is much more pronounced and better with our brands than with the but Chinese, for example.
You have more than 10,000 employees, including almost half in France. The last time I received you here on France Info, you were closing a site, the salad activity in sachet in the Meuse. Are you going to close other sites in France, in Europe?
This is not the goal at all.
“In my career, I had never closed a site before Bonduelle. So my goal by coming to Bonduelle, it was to do development. It turned out only on the salad, we had a story that is different.”
Xavier Unkovicon franceinfo
Today, the activation of our brands is in full swing. “When it’s good, it’s Bonduelle”, we revived this dynamic of the heritage of the brand because it is important to work on the heritage of the brand and to amplify it and modernize it. We want to modernize the brand. We want to ensure that our sales are increasing and that our factories and our manufacturing workshops are going best.
Europe is your first market with 60% of outlets. But you said the United States would become a very large market for you, the most profitable. Are you still convinced of this?
I am convinced that it will be the biggest, absolutely.
“Today, the Bonduelle brand is launched in the United States everywhere and we are delighted.”
Xavier Unkovicon franceinfo
We have introduced new products and innovation in the United States who did not exist among retailers and American distributors. We were elected products they call “Long Life” of the year. So listen, I’m delighted. Things evolve, the results improve significantly. Like any transformation, it takes its time. You have to learn to be a little patient. We set ourselves three years to make Bonduelle transform, Bonduelle develops, and make sure that when it is good, it is bondual all the time.
