Naturdis: wholefood supplier to the Côte d’Azur

The wholefood wholesaler Naturdis, that is located in Grasse 30 km to the west of Nice, supplies the entire Côte d’Azur with organic products. It delivers goods regularly to 150 wholefood shops, including three in Monaco. The company’s wholesale business, both in the south and across the rest of France, led to the company experiencing double-digit growth, with turnover reaching 12 million euros in 2008.
(Picture: Jean Federzoni with his sons Bernard and Philippe)
“If you want to expand the specialist trade on the Côte d’Azur, the main problem you have to contend with is the sky-high rent demanded for retail space up to 300 m²,” comments Jean Federzoni, the boss of the wholesale firm that he founded 25 years ago. Every year, they add ten new addresses in the region that they supply between Italy and Marseille. “But some businesses close down after a year, because they haven’t got their sums right,” says the 72-year-old entrepreneur. He goes on to say that regrettably rents in Nice, Cannes and Antibes are comparable with those in Paris. Nevertheless, his company grew by 10 % in 2007, and for the financial year 2008/09, that runs to the end of March, Federzoni is anticipating a growth rate of more than 10 %. (Picture: Entrance to the organic supermarket on the site of the wholefood wholesaler in Grasse)

Supplying canteens has contributed to the growth rate achieved over recent years. “For the last seven years we have concentrated on the development of organics for large-scale customers, but only in the last two years has this really taken off,” Jean Federzoni explains. Now he supplies organic products to nearly 1000 canteens in all over France belonging, for example, to Sodexho, Avenance, Elior and Sogères. In the wholesale company’s neighbouring community, Le Rouret, 450 primary school children eat an organic midday meal supplied by Naturdis. In Nice and Grasse, on the other hand, the schoolchildren have an organic meal only every two to four weeks. “When you submit a tender for school catering, it is for one year,” Federzoni explains, and that means he knows how long he will be supplying his goods and he can plan accordingly. In consequence, he is the only one among the regional wholefood wholesalers in France who has adapted his business operations to supply large-scale customers – by, for example, providing goods in bulk. (Picture: Commissioning at the wholesaler’s)

“We start loading the trucks at 3.30 in the morning, and then off they go,” says Mr Federzoni. It is essential that many shops receive their supplies before the rush-hour. The wholesaler is open from 5.30 for customers collecting their supplies. Around 30 keen shopkeepers come every morning to stock up with goods, in particular with fruit and vegetables, depending on what is currently available. One of these customers is Roland Cheneval, who twice a week travels 30 km from Callian to buy his goods from Naturdis. (Picture on left: Seven 3.5 t to 19 t refrigerated lorries transport the goods to shops and large-scale customers)

“If we break down our turnover, we find that fruit and vegetables account for about a third, dry goods for another third and red and white fresh produce like dairy products, bakery goods and vacuum-packed meat for the other third,” says 45-year-old Bernard Federzoni (picture), who works with his brother Philippe (46) in the family business. Whilst Philippe’s main task is coordinating the agricultural production through managing the company’s own market garden, Bernard is responsible for sales, the fresh and "ultra-fresh" (2° C) department. Adjacent to the wholesaler’s premises, with the two warehouses for dry and fresh goods (2750 m²), are 1 ha of greenhouses and 3.5 ha of cultivated land. This land is used for growing tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, zucchini, leeks, aubergines, cucumber, radishes and fresh herbs. Five employees work in the market garden, 33 in the wholesale section and seven in the company’s own supermarket on the same site. The company recently acquired more land, and the vegetable-growing area is being extended by 4 ha. (Picture on right: Frozen food like these diced tomatoes for large-scale customers are stored at - 20˚ C)

“It was in 1970 that I became fired with enthusiasm”, Jean Federzoni confesses. His sons are farmers too. It was at this time that the family farm was converted to organic, and the vegetables were sold direct to the public at the market in Nice. When his sons started working in the family business in 1984, they founded the wholesale company Naturdis. In 1990 they built the first warehouse next to the family’s own house, and then in 2001 came the second warehouse. They had been selling from the farm - farm-gate sales or ‘vente a la ferme’ in French – since 1966. In 1992 this activity became more professional when they created a farm shop. In 2002, this shop was expanded to become a 300 m² organic supermarket. Over the last two years, they have taken over three wholefood stores in the region that were in danger of going out of business and now Naturdis operates organic retail outlets in Nice (100 m² and 300 m²) and in La Colle sur Loup near Cagnes sur mèr (200 m²).

Although Naturdis supplies a region with a million inhabitants on the Côte d’Azur (a coastal strip 80 km long and 12 km wide), plus roughly the same number of people in the much less densely populated Département Var, the wholesale business does not benefit from the many tourists who in the summer descend on the region from the north of France, England and Germany. “In July and August our turnover actually drops by 15 %,” Mr Federzoni explains. Previously the decline in sales was as high as 50 %. In this traditional tourist region, where for more than 100 years tourism has been a thriving business, there is still no sign of organic tourism. (Picture: Big wine department in the NaturMarché organic supermarket)

Although the Federzonis are critical of the development of the organic segment in conventional stores and regard this trend as serious competition, they package a small range of fruit and vegetables with their own packaging equipment. These products are supplied on a small scale under the brand name Croquembal to the chain Leclerc and other outlets. The name Naturdis is not used in this context.
Another own brand, “Natura Bio”, is used for marketing dried fruits. But like Croquembal it does not play a major role.

The 300 m² NaturMarché store (picture on left), on the site of the wholesale business at the foot of the town Grasse, acts as a display for the public of the roughly 11,000 items in the company’s product range. Consumers can see immediately that the emphasis is on green, fresh produce. Even in January there is a mass of fruit and vegetables on sale here. But NaturMarché is very well stocked with other products too, whether you want to buy cheese, sausage, packaged goods or frozen foods. “Only in food supplements is our range rather limited – we are not strong in this area,” Federzoni concedes. On average, 250 customers a day come into the store and thus contribute to the annual turnover of more than a million euros.

More than three-quarters of all traded products are sourced in France. The company is regularly supplied by between 300 and 400 manufacturers. Goods also come from around 20 suppliers abroad, with whom the company has long-standing connections. For a long time now, the company has bought citrus fruits from Murcia in Spain and certain fine food items from Italy. Whilst about 90 % of dairy products are produced in France, Andechser Molkerei and ÖMA in Germany are listed too. “Because we want 100 % organic goods for our customers, we’ve got a problem at the moment with gluten-free grain products. This is why we are increasingly replacing the conventional articles of our current supplier (the firm Schaer) with goods from other suppliers.

Some goods are purchased in collaboration with other wholesalers. The five regional distributors Relais Vert (Carpentras), Bio-Cache (Montpellier), Pronadis (Bordeaux), Biodis (Rennes) and Naturdis operate together under the name “Sud Nature”. Whilst Relais Vert already has an annual turnover of more than 20 million euros, the turnover of the others is on the same level as Naturdis.

Once a year, over a weekend in September, Naturdis organises in its home-town a two-day organic fair for consumers called “Bio-Grasse”. It regularly attracts between 100 and 150 exhibitors and around 6000 visitors. This year it will be held for the fourteenth time.

One of Naturdis’s future projects is the installation of a 1000 m² of photovoltaic solar panels on the roofs of the warehouses. “We’ve got the planning permission, and we’ll be installing them probably in the coming year,” Jean Federzoni is delighted to report. He has certainly never been short of ideas; it’s just that financing has to stay within the bounds of the possible. In spite of his 72 years he is bursting with enthusiasm for his company and the organic idea. He just shrugs his shoulders: “What else is there for a pensioner to do? OtherwiseI would only get bored.”

Tip:
www.naturdis.com
www.biograsse.fr