Paris, Oct 11 (AFP) No plate of French charcuterie orpicnic would be complete without the cornichon, but mostGallic food lovers would be surprised to learn that the tangygreen garnish was likely grown in India.
Over the past 25 years, market forces have shiftedproduction of the crunchy pickled cucumbers consumed inFrance, once an all-French affair, almost entirely to growersin South Asia and eastern Europe.
But a Franco-Swiss company, Reitzel, has found a way torevive an age-old tradition in France by designing a contractthat has enticed a small but growing number of local farmers.
The problem with the cornichon cucumber is that it is nota hardy crop, it is expensive to grow, and it is harvestedonly once a year in France, compared with three times a yearin India.
"Gradually, manufacturers began sourcing their suppliesfrom India," Reitzel's director Emmanuel Bois told AFP. As themarket dried up, French farmers stopped growing cornichoncucumbers, he said.
Today some 80 percent of the 60 million jars ofcornichons sold each year in France contain produce fromIndia, and around 20 percent are sourced from eastern Europe.
Only a small proportion, destined for the specialityhigh-end market, use cornichons grown in France.
It's the sort of industry that the new centristgovernment of French President Emmanuel Macron is looking torevive as it seeks to stimulate the struggling agriculturesector and promote grown-locally produce.
Currently Reitzel pays one euro (a dollar) a kilogramme(2.2 pounds) to its Indian suppliers compared with five or sixeuros per kilo to its French contractors.
"But if the jar (of French pickles) was six times moreexpensive, you would never sell it, so we lowered our margin,"Bois said, explaining that the only way to reach a competitiveprice was with large volumes.
The idea is to recreate a network of French growers thatwill be "lasting and therefore profitable," Bois said. "That'sthe company's philosophy."Five farmers have signed up with Reitzel, which this yearexpects to produce 400,000 jars of made-in-France cornichonsunder the label Le Jardin d'Orante, compared with 110,000 lastyear.
One of Reitzel's contractors, Olivier Corbin in thecentral Sarthe region, said he revived a family tradition.
"On my own I would not have been able to sell cornichons,and Reitzel was looking for growers who already were familiarwith the process," he told AFP.
But Corbin would not have gone into it without a contractthat not only locks in a price and minimum volume, but alsoinsures against crop failure.
Last year, Corbin lost nearly half of his crop because offlooding in June.
Reitzel reimbursed him for his inputs and "a little moreto compensate for the work put in," Corbin said.
The Franco-Swiss firm also secured guarantees fromdistributors, with major supermarket chains Intermarche,Carrefour and Monoprix agreeing from the start to stock twoproducts proposed by Reitzel.
"The operation would not have been possible without thebacking of distributors," Bois said.
Reitzel's two plants in France produce some 25 millionjars a year of bell peppers, capers, corn, dried tomatoes aswell as cornichons, with a turnover in 2016 of 34 millioneuros (USD 40 million).
"Today, with the French cornichons, we are flirting withone percent of the market and the hope is to reach 10 percentwithin a decade" by doubling production each year, Bois said.
But there is also the public awareness aspect, he said.
"We have to get consumers who buy without thinking tounderstand the difference." (AFP)RB.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.