Chicory producing brand, Perle du Nord, presented their 2016-2017 report last year as well as their aims for the year ahead.
The brand has 140 chicory producers in 6 producer organisations. With over 52% market share in the pre-wrapped sector, they hold a leading position on the French chicory market.
Patrick Petitpas, CEO, says that they have seen a 7% decrease this year due to a a lack of root harvest, partly because of bad weather conditions. He explains that consumption saw a slight 2% decrease. “However, we were able to make the most of the harvest, with prices above those of previous years (+10% compared to last year).”
According to Kantar Worldpanel, three quarters of households consume an average 6.65kg of chicory per year (+1.1% of the number of buyers). The French chicory market today represents 140 million tons (excl. processing and exporting), compared to 200 million tons 15 or so years ago. Vincent Decool, Perle du Nord’s Sales Manager, says that “we are not expecting an increase in consumption in the years ahead, but we would like to maintain and upkeep this level of consumption”. He explains that packaged chicory is more and more popular on the market. A few years ago chicory sold by the kilo represented over 80% of turnover, compared to 40% today. The small packaged formats have seen the most increase in sales.
Patrick Petitpas explains that they want to develop the ready to use market (chicory specially for gratins, salad, soup…) and the different quality of products (premium ranges) in order to maintain the consumers opinion of the Perle du Nord brand.