Several Hérault farmers have installed fruit and vegetable vending machines on their farms, accessible at any time of the day.
For Sébastien Delmas, farmer in Teyran, these connected lockers "made it possible to attract a clientele that we did not have, especially young people".
Loïc Bruté de Rémur, manager of Vergers de Saint-Jean, wants to convince real estate developers to give way to this concept at the bottom of their buildings.
In these vending machines, no soda or chocolate bars, but fresh fruits and vegetables. In Hérault, several farmers, anxious to make their products available to customers at any time of the day or night, have fallen for these machines, which are booming.
As with any other distributor, we select the product that interests us thanks to a number, we pay (with a bank card, most of the time), the locker opens and we recover the crate of food.
Denis Dorques, at the head of an organic farm in Villeveyrac, was one of the first in the department to install this device on his farm, in 2013. He now has around thirty lockers.
"We were looking to diversify our points of sale, and to be able to sell our products without being there," explains the Hérault farmer.
Sometimes when you open a store, you make a turnover that does not pay for the time you spend there.
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This is only a "side income"
If, with this type of machine, the link between the consumer and the producer is a little broken, those who wish can, always, buy their products in a more traditional way: the operation of Denis Dorques is an Association for the maintenance of 'peasant agriculture (Amap), which is based on a partnership between customers and the producer. "The distributor is more for those who do not necessarily want this link, and who need a salad and a tomato for dinner," continues the farmer. However, Denis Dorques notes that this is only a “side income”. As a producer, we do not live only through the sales of the distributor.
Sébastien Delmas, from the Croquez du frais operation in Teyran, installed such a robot in 2019. And it works.
“Particularly when the store is closed, on Saturday afternoon, Sunday or on public holidays,” says the producer.
It is a good investment.
But it takes time to make the baskets and supply the distributor.
"What is interesting, continues the Hérault farmer, is that this machine" allowed us to attract a clientele that we did not have, especially young people, who did not necessarily take the step of entering the shop ".
Soon in town, at the bottom of the buildings?
Loïc Bruté de Rémur, manager of the Vergers de Saint-Jean, in Saint-Jean-de-Védas, also relies on these connected lockers. You enter a shed, day and night, and you buy the farm products, but also pâtés, sausages, oysters or fruit juices from local farmers. For fifteen years this former manager in the food industry was thinking of falling for these distributors. But they were still pretty messed up at the time. "The solutions were not adapted to the climate," explains Héraultais, who works with great chefs in the area. In a wall of unrefrigerated racks, a strawberry, an apricot… I'll let you imagine. "
Technology has since evolved.
And Loïc Bruté de Rémur, faced with the upheavals of the health crisis, decided to install, in partnership with the specialist company Natur'O Frais, 110 self-service lockers with air conditioning according to the needs of the products.
“It’s a real experience for us,” he says.
But he did not plan to stop there.
He wants to install this type of distributor in town, by attracting, in particular, real estate developers, who would agree to give way to this concept at the bottom of their buildings.
"I am hopeful that some will be interested in it," says Loïc Bruté de Rémur.
Nowhere has that happened yet.
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Montpellier
Hérault: A farmer installs a vending machine to sell his fruits and vegetables
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Languedoc-Roussillon
Montpellier
Fruits and vegetables
Agriculture
Economy