Commodity chain : Chestnut

Background History of the Commodity Chain

The relationship between producers of chestnut in Ardèche dates back to the creation of Euro-Nat. Chestnut is a typical agricultural product of the department in which the company is located.

Description of the partnership

To ensure continuous supply of the dry chestnut chain, both qualitatively and quantitatively, to improve the economy of the chain and to make chestnut agriculture durable, the following actions will be implemented:

- Implementation of long term contracts (several years) to give producers visibility and to allow them to optimise their chestnut growing areas accordingly, and signature of annual contracts making room for downpayments to assist on the preparation of harvesting and to allow to call on seasonal workforce.

-Producers also have technical support to better master harvesting (reduction of workforce for picking, reduction of time when chestnut are left on the ground). Said technical support can also be partially financed with the help of AOP.

- A research program on the promotion of specificities of local varieties and on the transformation processes, to which the Research and Development Department of Euro-Nat is associated, should allow to meet the technical constraints specified in the specifications. Work on the creation of new references will also be carried out to develop the commodity chain.

- Euro-Nat has committed itself to taking part in the organisation project of a transformation workshop within CUMA Envie de Châtaignes, which, in the short term, should result in a decrease of production costs to guarantee competitiveness to producers of the region. The "Châtaignes et Moulinage du Tanargue" workshop will have the storage and cold preservation means for chestnuts and transformed products, as well as sorting, grading, grinding and conditioning equipment. Located at the heart of the controlled label of origin "Châtaignes de l'Ardèche", the workshop will allow its users to add the highly valued label of " Appellation d'Origine Protégée (AOP)".

- Commitment of partners to meet on a yearly basis to draw up a technical and commercial assessment of the past campaign and to confirm the needs for the following year.

Partners

11 producers, Euro-Nat, Chambre d'Agriculture de l'Ardèche, CUMA châtaignes en Vie, the city of Rocles and the community of cities of Beaume-Drobie.

Internal Commitment of Ekibio for a sustainable production

EKIBIO has chosen to get involved in a wilful sustainable development policy for several years. This policy is built along three axis on which the group concentrates (refer to the description of the einkorn chain in Haute Provence).

Company engaged in this Commodity Chain

EURO-NAT