The research and development teams are hard at work for both supermarkets and the food service industry, to meet the needs and expectations of consumers and society as a whole. This yields a wide variety of product innovations applicable to each of the Eureden Group’s businesses.
Our frozen vegetable subsidiary Gelagri, which creates more than 50 new products each year, recently distinguished itself with the highly publicized launch of its cauliflower rice (a winner of a Restau’Co Innovation Trophy 2018).
Our innovations also relate to packaging, like frozen vegetable gratins in wooden trays. Not to mention processes. In canned vegetables for instance, a mature market par excellence, the vegetable value chain innovated with the addition of vacuum-packed prepared stir fries.
On the egg value chain, our brand Cocotine is adapting to changes in its markets and consumer patterns. For example, our teams developed laser pre-cut soft-boiled eggs and pasteurized shell eggs to ensure absolute food safety for delicate culinary preparations and vulnerable populations.
As you can see, the field of possibilities is enormous when it comes to meeting customer expectations, and the Eureden Group intends to weave innovation and R&D into our corporate DNA.
Gelagri’s R&D team develops new products under private labels or for Paysan Breton. This involves collaborating with distribution and marketing to devise new recipes and then adapt them to our industrial processes while considering how they will be used in the home or by professionals.
In addition to flavour, we also pay attention to our products’ origins: Eureden vegetables are covered by the Agri Confiance co-operative approach and enjoy Level 2 French environmental certification.
For other ingredients (cream, meat, etc.), we prioritize local goods and renewable resources, and apply environmental and food safety criteria to our sourcing. In this way, since 2012, we have banned the use of palm oil and limited the use of additives and sodium as far as possible.
We are also working to optimize our packaging (size, weight, pallets, etc.). Our challenge is to incorporate the multiple constraints and expectations as we continue to enhance our products’ taste and practicality.