'Too expensive for supermarkets': how eastern France's biggest vegetable grower went bust

This enterprise supplied vegetables to supermarkets across France: four million salads, one and a half million bunches of radishes, hundreds of tonnes of celery, parsley, cabbage and turnips from 220 hectares. But now the hangar-sized fridges are empty, the machinery is being sold abroad and the former vegetable fields will be sown with wheat and maize to feed livestock.

ID3A, the largest vegetable company in the Grand Est region, is closing its doors. Founder and manager Claude Keller explains: "We can't sell at a price that at least covers our costs.

Last year, in the 13th week of the calendar, these fields were to be planted with 50,000 batavia, 10,000 lettuce and 25,000 oak leaf lettuce, as well as three hectares of radishes. Today, not a single bed. Instead of a planting plan, a plan to liquidate the business and lay off staff. In total, up to 70 seasonal workers and 12 permanent employees have been made redundant.

The main reason: rising production costs - from energy and transport to fertilisers. And the unwillingness of retail chains to raise purchase prices. "No one has the right to sell at a loss, except us - the producers," says Keller. He emphasises that the price of a product is formed not from the costs of production, but from the "market price", which is often underestimated.

In recent years, France has tried to change the situation with Egalim laws, which formally prohibit retailers from buying from farmers at below-cost prices. However, according to Keller, things have remained the same.

"We hoped the law would help, but it hasn't changed anything," Farmer says. He says media heads of corporations may say one thing, but shop managers on the ground are demanding discounts and lowering prices.

Another blow is competition with small producers who, Keller argues, don't know their costs and agree to price below cost, thereby undermining the market and operating at a loss - unknowingly.

According to Keller, as long as the price is not directly linked to the costs of production, "there is no way out of the crisis". Neither state aid, nor reforms, nor law can change a model where the last and most vulnerable member of the chain is forced to "pay" for the profits of the others.

"As long as the consumer is not ready to pay for our labour, no one will save us. Today he is the main arbiter. He decides whether to buy this salad. And we are out of the game," Keller summarised in a commentary for L'Essentiel.