Entrepreneurship: Get behind the scenes at Alentours, the grocery store that makes organic and local produce affordable for all.
Members of the 3rd cohort of the accelerator program, Jérémy Lizarot (MBS 2016) and Charly Lassalle are the founders of Alentours. Together, they chose to start an entrepreneurial adventure through the creation of a neighborhood grocery store dedicated to the sale of organic and local products accessible to all. On April 20, they also won the Social Business Prize, initiated by the Yunus Center of MBS and the Trial Group.
ALENTOURS: AFFORDABLE PRODUCTS YOU CAN TRUST
Jérémy Lizarot and Charly Lassalle, both from the rural Occitanie region and passionate about wine and eating well, have joined forces to found “Alentours”, a neighborhood organic mini-market featuring organic and eco-responsible food and non-food items, produced locally and affordable to all. Their offer is 100% organic and between 30% and 40% local.
“At a time when the environment and health are central concerns, all populations, whatever their income level, should have access to organic, local, quality products they can trust. Unfortunately, despite the democratization of organic produce, today these products are still reserved for a well-to-do segment of the population. As young urban workers, we were confronted with these shortcomings, and it was almost impossible for us to have access to quality products whose origin we knew, at an affordable price”, they explain.
Their approach is to meet the producers themselves and select the products they sell. “This allows us to limit the number of intermediaries between producers and consumers, and thus to offer fair remuneration to producers while guaranteeing our customers quality, traceable products at affordable prices. We want to be the first point of contact for our customers’ producers. By knowing how they grow and having tasted their products before selecting them, we have all the information we need to pass on to our customers,” shares Charly.
AN AGILE GROCERY STORE ADAPTED TO NEW USES
But Charly and Jérémy wanted to go even further.
On a daily basis, as consumers, they observe a lack of adequacy between the uses of working people and the operation of local produce shops. “The services offered by organic and local players are often unsuited to the needs of city dwellers. Opening hours aren’t long enough, shelves aren’t always well-stocked, and digital technology is still under-exploited,” remarks Jérémy.
For these reasons, they decided to adapt their grocery store to the needs of their customers. In addition to opening hours adapted to the lifestyles of city dwellers, they are developing an e-commerce site where products and their origins will be listed and detailed. However, they don’t limit themselves to distributing only organic and local products: “Many of our customers are young parents, and their lifestyles require them to consume certain products, such as bananas or toilet paper, which are unavoidable. We prefer to adapt to our customers and offer them as many local products as possible, but so that they can do all their shopping with us, rather than offering only local products and having them end up at the supermarket out of convenience”. The latter are also available for delivery, a practice that is now unavoidable.
“We’re also working to put people back at the heart of our project. To this end, we regularly organize markets on the store’s large terrace. These are convivial days, where producers and customers meet. We also bring in musicians, and customers can discover and test products live.”
DELIVERY SERVICE AND SECOND STORE OPENING : ALENTOURS ACCELERATES ITS DEVELOPMENT
Charly Lassalle and Jérémy Lizarot, incubated since 2021, have joined the cohort of the 3rd edition of the accelerator program with Alentours, a meaningful project with strong values.
“Encouraged by our coach, we decided to apply for acceleration in order to respond to several of the issues we were encountering. Firstly, we want to develop a delivery service for the whole of Montpellier, and thus launch e-commerce.
Our second major objective is to open a second store in La Grande Motte. To achieve this, we need to automate a number of our processes. For all these subjects, we were supported by the Acceleration coaches, who analyzed our day-to-day working methods and guided us towards improving these processes,” shares Jérémy.
“What’s more, as the experts were themselves company founders, they shared their anecdotes and experiences with us. These exchanges enabled us to refine our thinking,” concludes Charly.
