The eight producers of French chicory company Direct Endives decided to join the producer organisation Soleil du Nord from 1 January. The new reinforced company, Endélis, has a production capacity of 16,000 tonnes of chicory and boasts 14 producers.
Dominique Lemaître, who acted as president of Soleil du Nord and has now taken over the presidency of the new company, commented to French weekly Fld: “Endélis, which has a complementary portfolio of clients, wants to implement a real strategy of certification (GlobalGAP and ISO 14001) in order to develop its markets, particularly abroad.”
According to Mr Lemaître, the producers of Soleil du Nord are all GlobalGAP-certified, so the main task is to get the producers of Direct Endives up to the same level of certification, something which Mr Lemaître says will require additional funds.
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