The company, Pronatura de Plouha (from Pronatura Bretagne, ex-Maraichers Bretons) have played a major role in the development of the organic Breton vegetable market. Their supply of cabbage, artichokes, potatoes, shallots and other vegetables is mainly from local producers.
Fabrice Raul, Head of their site in Plouha, near Paimpol explains that the company has 5 sites in France : Nantes, Rungis, Cavaillon, Perpignan and Plouha. Their annual organic fruit and vegetable production reaches 45,000 tons per year, of which 7,000 tons is produced on the Plouha site (which has 80 producers). Their largest turnover is thanks to specialised (organic) stores.
80% of their products come from the West in general, the Côtes-d’Armor, Finistère, Ille et Vilaine. 90% of the products from Plouha are Breton, but they do sometimes have to get supplies from Normandy or the Paris region.
Pronatura’s fruit and vegetables are exported to England, Belgium, Switzerland and Holland. Mr Raul explains that they are now starting to work with markets such as Dubai, but the largest market is still Germany.
The company has 10 full time employees in Plouha and 3-4 seasonal workers in the winter, and up to 20 in the summer. They are mainly employed for the large to medium supermarket market, i.e. packaging.
Mr Raul says that the Pronatura group is working on product diversity and developing organic production for all markets.