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Richel Serres, a leading made-in-France company

Charles Cornillère - 02/08/12
  Agribusiness ( 91 posts )

Agricultural equipment and Food processing, Packaging ( 15 posts )

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Richel Serres is a true family success-story. When his cattle were seriously infected by aftosa in the 1960s, Christian Richel started an agricultural supplies wholesaling company. Quickly, while people were rushing into city centres, he understood the potential for greenhouse cultures and started his own business as a greenhouse producer. In the seventies, his son, who was at the head of the company when the second oil crisis begun, created a new double-partition plastic envelop for greenhouses allowing a 30% energy savings. The success was immediate and Richel Serres reached the restricted club of quality greenhouse suppliers. He started to export his production in 80 different countries with every engineers and representatives being recruited in France to relay, in a better way than a distributer, the firm’s know-how. Now the company is entirely based on this business model, as Christian Richel explains: “We have now 18 offices around the world. It costs a lot in salaries, but the services that we are able to offer to our customers are priceless: taylored-made design, follow-up of orders, supervision of assembly… Our local presence guarantees the delivery deadlines in an agricultural world where each minute counts”. Thanks to these offices, the firm can respond to major international calls for tender.

 

To produce in France is more expensive but for the owner, “when you relocate your production, you can’t supervise the supply chain, the quality of your subcontractors and the raw materials supplies as efficiently as we do thanks to our vertical organisation”. Consequently, Richel Serres choose to mechanise its production to reduce costs: with only 180 people, it generates a €65m turnover, being the world leader on this market.

 

This quality oriented strategy is strengthened with the buying of some major subcontractors to control its whole supply chain and therefore to be able to entirely build turnkey greenhouses. In addition, the firm continues to make large research investments to keep on being a leading actor in the market. And its location in France is the keystone of this winning strategy.

 

Source: “Serres Richel : automatisme à outrance”, Paul Molga, Les Echos, August 2012
Tags: french trade commission,Greenhouse manufacturer,Made-In-France,Richel Serres,success-story,Ubifrance Ireland
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