The Boards of Directors of Agrial and Evel’Up have just approved the exclusive study of a project to bring together the Pig Farmer Organisations of the two co-operatives. This project is particularly promising for the French pork industry and demonstrates the ambition of Evel’Up and Agrial to support, perpetuate and develop livestock farming in the Grand Ouest region, with a focus on proximity and local roots.
Against a backdrop of sharply shrinking production volumes and heightened global competition, the French pork industry must continue to provide farmers with the best possible expertise and showcase its many strengths. To this end, Agrial and Evel’UP are focusing on providing local support to breeders, optimising the value of production, and renewing the generations.
The aim of this project is to analyse the relevance of pooling and strengthening the technical expertise, innovation, and commercial performance of the two co-operatives’ pork activities, in the interests of the competitiveness of the livestock farming and the success of their breeders.
Moreover, the territorial synergy of the pork production activities of the two co-operatives is obvious: while the breeder members of Evel’Up are essentially based in Brittany (Finistère, Côtes d’Armor, Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan), the pork farmer members of Agrial are mainly located in the Normandy, Pays de la Loire, and Centre French region, as well as in the Ille-et-Vilaine department. Evel’Up and Agrial being organised in local sections, this planned merger will strengthen the proximity of the co-operatives and their employees to their farmer members, thanks to the quality of the expertise and services provided to support their individual projects.
For many years, the sectors approach has also been at the very heart of both co-operatives’ philosophy, with a large proportion of farmers committed to “Label Rouge”, “Cochon De Bretagne”, “Porc Petit Lait”, antibiotic-free, “FAF” (on-farm feed factory) and many other quality initiatives. The meat processing activities of Agrial Meat division are a real asset for the two co-operatives, enabling them to continue to develop these sectors. The challenges of increasingly responsible pork production (animal welfare, renewable energy production, environmental protection, etc.) are at the heart of the concerns of Agrial and Evel’Up.
“Through this planned merger, we don’t just want to consolidate our pork production activities. We want to become the reference, to provide ever-better support for our farmer members and to meet the economic, social, and environmental challenges of today and tomorrow. This project demonstrates our strong ambition to ensure the long-term future of pig farming in the Grand Ouest region and our absolute confidence in the relevance of the co-operative model for achieving this goal.”, conclude Philippe Bizien and Arnaud Degoulet, both pork breeder producers and respectively Chairmen of Evel’Up and Agrial.
