Brittany-based tomato producers Savéol, Prince de Bretagne and Solarenn, which represent around half of the French tomato market, have formed the ‘Alliance Nature & Saveurs’ guaranteeing a product that has been “cultivated without pesticides”.
“Consumers are paying attention to what they buy,” said Pierre-Yves Jestin, president of Savéol. “They expect a reduction in pesticides.”
Marc Keranguéven, president of SICA, which sells under the Prince de Bretagne brand, revealed that the cooperative’s growers had been working to reduce their use of synthetic pesticides for a long time.
Pests such as whitefly or fungi, once treated by spraying, are now eliminated by workers plant by plant, according to Jestin.
The alliance is expected to be extended to other products, with trials already underway on pumpkins, strawberries and cucumbers.
The label could also open up to any producer that agrees to meet the specifications, with compliance controlled by an independent body.
'We want to bring along those lagging behind,” said Gilbert Brouder, president of the UCPT cooperative of Prince de Bretagne. “But agriculture does not move at the speed of the internet. It takes longer. The most important thing now is to avoid putting up barriers between conventional and organic producers.”
Although the alliance’s tomatoes receive zero chemical treatments, they cannot be labelled as organic, since they are grown outside of the soil in greenhouses.
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