Lower Normandy is joining Valorial, Brittany’s Agrifood Competitiveness Cluster. A closer look at a comprehensive partnership focusing on emergence and joint public funding for major and innovative joint projects. The agrifood industry’s players are bound by the same rule: the future lies in innovation. Yet, a recent strategic assessment, initiated by the Lower Normandy Regional Council, has demonstrated that Normandy’s agrifood SMEs are in need of support to help them both to innovate and to adapt to new market trends.

Valorial’s Lower Normandy intermediary | ANEA: a legitimate link between companies | 3 questions aimed at Xavier Drouet

Valorial’s Lower Normandy intermediary
Over and above the Lower Normandy Regional Council, liaison with agrifood businesses will also rely on a territorial representative, who will be in charge of meeting with them and of facilitating project elaboration, in particular with the ADRIA.

ANEA: a legitimate link between companies
The agrifood industry is on the move. In line with its partnership with Valorial, Lower Normandy has also created an association to represent the sector’s businesses throughout the region. By definition, Lower Normandy’s agrifood businesses are the best ambassadors to decide on the major financial, regulatory and miscellaneous projects pertaining to their own industry. The creation, last January, of the ANEA - Association Normande des Entreprises Alimentaires (Norman Association of Food Businesses) has provided the Regional Council and authorities with a representative for the industry’s professionals. Two months after its creation, over 40 businesses, from the very small enterprise to major groups, have already joined the association. “A total of sixty companies have expressed an interest,” adds Bertrand Declomesnil, the association’s Chairman and Manager of Declomesnil, a business specialising in pork meat processing and packaging. “We have joined forces within a non-commercial spirit, serving the common interest rather than the individual. Valorial’s marketing potential and the incentive to work together towards R&D solutions are perfectly in keeping with this philosophy.” In association with ADRIA and other regional R&D bodies, ANEA* already appears as the perfect partner to represent Normandy’s agrifood professionals within the Breton Competitiveness Cluster. The association’s Research and Development commission will also provide the ideal interface between Valorial and the region’s agrifood businesses with regard to the dissemination of information.
Times are changing.
For a long time confined to their own playing field, an increasing number of Normandy’s agrifood businesses are coming out into the open, looking for complementary associations. ANEA’s members apply precisely the same philosophy with regard to the Breton competitiveness cluster. As summed up by Bertrand Declomesnil, “Although the agrifood industry is the region’s leading employer, Lower Normandy will never, alone, represent a genuine competitiveness cluster. However, we do deserve a legitimate place within a cluster. The policy of presence, rather than an empty chair, is evident.”
* Similar associations in other regions are referred to as ARIA (Regional Association of Agrifood Industries)
ANEA - Association Normande des Entreprises Alimentaires | Christiane Audic, General Secretary | Agropôle Normandie - 6 rue des Roquemonts - 14053 Caen Cedex 4 | Tel. : 02 31 47 22 09

3 questions aimed at Xavier Drouet
Lower Normandy’s Delegate Director for Research and Innovation
“Our regions combine a community with common interests”
You are one of the initiators of Lower Normandy’s association with Valorial. What philosophy is behind this approach ?
Our partnership is the result of a strategic assessment conducted in 2007 by the Regional Council’s Economic Trends department and focusing on Lower Normandy’s agrifood industry. This evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses enabled strategic challenges to be identified; challenges which in turn have led to the development of an action plan, agreed by industrialists and partners. Rather than devoting our time, energy and funds to developing bridges between our agrifood businesses and research, it appeared more rational to approach our neighbouring competitiveness cluster. Valorial had already opened its doors to the Pays de la Loire in 2007. Similarly, Lower Normandy chose to become the cluster’s partner and to adopt a collective approach. Our regions combine a genuine community with common interests.
So in concrete terms, how is your partnership materialised ?
As far as governance is concerned, the Lower Normandy Regional Council is invited to VALORIAL’s annual general meeting. During the recent AGM on the 10th of April 2008, it was unanimously decided that the Lower Normandy Regional Council, together with a representative from the IAA (Agrifood Industries) and a Normandy-based player in the field of research be invited to the cluster’s board meetings. A regional representative will also join the project labelling commission and Lower Normandy will be represented within the finance committee. Today, our work involves informing the region’s agrifood businesses in order to encourage them to get involved in the competitiveness cluster’s R&D projects.
In the medium term, would it be feasible to envisage an even closer collaboration; why not an inter-regional cluster, following the example of Mov’eo ?
Our immediate aim is to provide further impetus for Lower Normandy’s agrifood industries. The more businesses join the initiative, the more projects involving Lower Normandy will emerge, rendering our presence within the pole all the more significant. But let’s move on step by step. Even if progression towards an inter-regional dimension is theoretically feasible, for the time being it is, at the very least, premature. Let’s start by learning to work together.
Xavier Drouet - Delegate Director for Research and Innovation. Lower Normandy Regional Council. Tel. 02 31 06 95 16

Although the agrifood industry is Lower Normandy’s prime employer, this leading dairy producing region still fails to reach the critical mass required to develop its own competitiveness cluster and to offer its associated businesses the impetus generated by cluster networks. Brittany meets that expectation. As France’s leading agricultural region, Brittany is also Europe’s first ranking agrifood exporter. The Breton competitiveness cluster devoted to tomorrow’s food industry and baptised Valorial, relies on a potential of 332 businesses (700 establishments), 70,000 jobs, 600 researchers, a dense network of research centres and an impressive range of education and training opportunities. Only two years after its creation, Valorial already boasts 86 certified collaborative projects. A result which clearly places the Breton cluster as one of the leaders among France’s ten other agrifood clusters. “It is important to note that these 86 projects essentially involve SMEs,” highlights Michel Pinel, Valorial’s Director. “SMEs have very rapidly grasped the fact that the cluster can help them to win the battle for competitiveness through collective collaboration.” Whilst preserving the confidentiality of each individual project.

Quality criterion

Member companies can also develop synergies with research centres or education and training institutes, in order to find the solutions which apply to their individual R&D concerns. Funding close at hand. Project certification by the cluster’s expert committees is, indeed, a prerequisite step towards the complementary public co-funding granted to competitiveness clusters. So many reasons, complemented by an indisputable and wide-ranging policy in favour of a collective effort, have led Lower Normandy to create propitious conditions for closer collaboration with the Breton cluster.
And on the 4th of March, the signature of a partnership agreement between Valorial and Lower Normandy officially sealed this union. “The aim of this association is clearly to enable collaborative projects in Brittany to involve players from Lower Normandy,” emphasises Marie-Pierre Delamare, in charge of competitiveness clusters within the Lower Normandy Regional Council’s Economic Trends Department. From our point of view, the Competitiveness Cluster label is a genuine quality criterion. Funding is facilitated for certified projects. Each year, three FUI (Unique Interministerial Fund) requests for proposals are launched. They only apply to certified projects.⁽¹⁾

“An instrument for rebounding and improving”

Over and above coaching aspects, the cluster’s impetus also lies in the emulation it generates. Although a born and bred Norman, Adria Normandie is one of Valorial’s earliest members. “As a private structure, we immediately wanted to join this driving force,” explains the company’s Director Jean-Claude Ingouf. “Meeting with the best a neighbouring region has to offer is also an instrument for rebounding and improving. It’s an evident incentive.” With already three certified projects in the field of food safety, initiated as a private structure, Adria Normandie has rapidly ventured beyond the regional frontiers, opening the way for other Lower Normandy players. Lower Normandy’s member institutions, laboratories or businesses, such as Adria Normandie, will also benefit from public funding thanks to the certification of joint projects by Valorial. Funding and method. “It’s a pragmatic approach,” recalls Jean-Claude Ingouf. “Research skills are always orchestrated to serve innovation. We are also pragmatic from a project engineering point of view. The expert committees in charge of assessment are extremely competent. Certification takes on a whole new dimension via our exchange with experts. Valorial is an obvious catalyst.” Project confidentiality is, of course, strictly respected. Be they Breton or Norman, wherever their frontiers, competition remains the name of the game between agrifood businesses. And on that front, Valorial has proven over the last two years its capacity to lead projects towards success whilst ensuring the strictest confidentiality.

A new strategy for 2009

In concrete terms, the Lower Normandy Regional Council will be relying on Adria as the ANEA’s* technical representative, as an industrial advisor and interface with the region’s agrifood businesses. (*see boxed article) Once more, pragmatism is the rule. Lower Normandy’s arrival in the wake of Valorial, preceded last year by the Pays de Loire region, is also an illustration of a turning point in the Breton cluster’s own vision. “Today, we are an acknowledged cluster and we can henceforth consider that our creation phase has met with success,” believes Michel Pinel. “We are now entering a phase of expansion and development to the west and on an international scale. The aim is to use Valorial as a collective brand name, portraying the know-how of Western France’s member companies across the globe. Co-funding from the three regions confers us an even greater impact for the emergence of major strategic projects from within Western France’s agrifood industry.”
So what is to become of the cluster’s identity ? Is an overtly inter-regional dimension on the agenda ? Two years after the certification of France’s 71 competitiveness clusters, the State has begun a series of assessment audits. The first cluster’s to be tested: the Breton clusters, with Valorial at the top of the bill; with renewed certification due by the year end. A new framework agreement and fresh strategic orientations will then be set for the cluster as from 2009. “From then on, the State may well extend the cluster’s legitimate territory throughout the West,” adds its director. “Our strategy is already leaning that way. With Brittany, Lower Normandy and the Pays de Loire reunited, we will become the leading agrifood hub throughout Europe.”

(1) Co-funding is also possible for projects initiated by research centres and the ANR (National Research Agency), and for private industrial projects initiated by OSEO and other local authorities.

For all you need to know about the agrifood industry:

Valorial (mission, certification, membership)

ANEA: Christiane Audic, General Secretary

Economic Trends Department, Lower Normandy Regional Council
Tél. : 02 31 06 98 65
Dominique Dida-Juhel
In charge of Industrial Sectors
Marie-Pierre Delamare In charge of Competitiveness Clusters

Valorial Competitiveness Cluster
Michel Pinel
Director
Agrocampus – Bât. 16 –
65, rue de Saint Brieuc
CS 84215 – 35042 Rennes Cedex Tél. : 02 23 48 59 64

Adria Normandie
Jean-Claude Ingouf
Managing Director
Boulevard du 13 juin 1944 -
B.P.2
14310 Villers-Bocage
Tél. : 02 31 25 43 00

Site : Adria Normandie

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