A collective trade brand for food produced in Alsace by local industries: a promotion tool based on the consumer’s need for local quality products.
The Alsatian food companies have set the goal to strengthen their competitiveness in France and overseas, in particular by enhancing their products together towards consumers and distributors beyond the Alsatian territory. The brand mainly aims at federating companies through marketing and business measures to favour negotiations with retailers and increase market shares.
This brand is available for every food business having its head office and production site located in Alsace. Actions offered to companies by ARIA Alsace are products labelling, collective in-store events, promotion on the web and among distributors.
The action has been extended in 2 directions:
Firstly, “Savourez l’Alsace Produit du Terroir” (with Alsace Qualité, the Alsatian quality food agency, and AAA, the Alsatian promotion agency). SAPT identifies agricultural food grown in Alsace: vegetables, meat, eggs, mustard, horseradish, pretzels, fruit juice and water. It also identifies processed products with at least 80% Alsatian raw materials. The respect for these requirements is controlled by an independent control authority on a frequency defined with the producer.
Secondly, a new tourist project has been developed from the brand, “Escales alsaciennes / The Alsatian Stop-overs”. Only registered companies of the brand Savourez l’Alsace, can open their doors to consumers who want to visit the production site.
Resources needed
Need of a dedicated human resource (ca. 0,25 FTE): record every demand; rewrite all the accredited references to produce a certificate for each company; log them on the website; have a global view of all the accreditations; prepare the committees; organise in-store business events.
Evidence of success
From a quantitative point of view: more than 2500 products and 50 participating companies by end 2017, 10 commercial operations / in-store events in 2017 in Alsace and in France, …
This brand brings more added value to companies by widening market shares.
Difficulties encountered
National administrative barrier; regional decision-taking process: know-how of whether a product can be accredited or not is very tricky; financial barrier: cost for a single business event in store can be expensive for companies, limiting the number of companies participating in collective action.
Potential for learning or transfer
Territorial brands are of growing interest for consumers, they can identify themselves with a trustful and valuable brand by favouring domestic purchases to support the local economy. Territorial brands are economical for companies as they share communication and promotion fees such as during in-store events and fairs. The action, therefore, responds to both consumers’ and companies’ needs.
Transfer to other territories is simple, as long as this region has: a food agency or equiv., dedicates some time (and therefore money) to the creation of the brand, then to its promotion among local producers, and finally among distributors and to the general public.
Tags: Local, Information, Innovation, Support, SME
