So far, Area Normandie has promoted 499 products under the Gourmandie logo. The 500th is the scallop, the queen species in the eastern Channel. NFM has identified 17 seafood products from Normandy likely to be included in the collective brand, with, first and foremost, mackerel and pout.

The Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (Inao) was not really keen to put forward the name of a  particular region. But it mattered to Hervé Morin, President of Normandy so the former minister won his case. Since last summer, the regional collective brand Gourmandie, created in 2003 and managed by the Association régionale des entreprises alimentaires (Area), has become Saveurs de Normandie. As a member of the A.r.e.a, Arnauld Manner, manager of Normandie fraîcheur mer (NFM), an association of fishermen, fish auctions and fish merchants in Normandy, has decided to add fresh and frozen seafood products to the brand. Up to now, only smoked or salted seafood products or those coming from fish farms have been concerned.

EDL group (Lequertier) was the first fish wholesaler to be hooked. “I come from the chain store business, from the Auchan group. The brand Saveurs en'or, with its strong regional identity,  was a hit there,” recalls François Le Bars, development manager at EDL, who has been in charge of the project for Lequertier for a year. “I fully support this project. The boats of Normandy are landing good products to which we need to add value and the Egalim law, promulgated in October, offers us tremendous opportunities,” he says. In order to be able to display the leopard-shaped logo of Saveurs de Normandie, it is of course necessary to meet specifications, traceability criteria and sensory analysis tests (score above 6 out of 20). “Within three months, three other fish trading companies should follow in the footsteps of EDL: Granvilmer, Rouen Marée and Manche Marée. It is essential to build a collective dynamic based on complementarity”, comments Jocelyn Fontaine, deputy manager of Area Normandie, in charge of the commercial strategy.

Richard GOASGUEN

Traduction : Catherine ROUSSEY