The 3Couleurs network unites producers that are interested in the taste of their fruit and vegetable production. Be it apricots, strawberries or tomatoes, they are chosen for their flavour and are grown in the ground until they reach full maturity.
“We want to defend products whose taste qualities justify the higher price. And we want large retailers to play along, by guaranteeing them a place, and therefore a chance” explains Renan Even who initiated the network.
3Couleurs has over 110 fruit and vegetable producers and potentially 3,000 that conform to their terms. They claim that “the aim is not to sell 10 times more expensive but to make the work behind the price tag understood”.
The initiative is shown by a holographic logo that guarantees that the fruits are of the best variety and are picked at the best time, once ripe. This requires up to 8 pickings in the orchard rather than one or two when harvested at the same time.
For producer Ghislain Jean, quality fruit production means growing them “in full soil and full season”. He visits his strawberry fields everyday and harvests 8-10 kilos an hour compared to over the double that in out of ground plantations. Ghislain Jean says that he is more wary of “competition from bad quality French strawberries than those from Spain : with those ones people know what they’re buying. The others prejudice me.”
Renan Even says that “valorising the product is a favour to everyone : producers, consumers and retailers”. And it is working, even in full crisis from competition from Spanish nectarines. “Since March, we have turned over 10,000 tons, all varieties” with prices on average 10% higher.
Many companies are following : Monoprix, three Leclerc’s (Ile-de-France, Ouest et Charentes/Deux-Sèvres) as well as thirty or so Auchan stores.