How do you feed eight billion people while preserving the planet? It’s a question faced by Thierry Blandinières, CEO of French agricultural cooperative InVivo Group. It’s the challenge, he says, that global agriculture will be facing sooner than we know it – in 2025.
He clearly isn’t daunted by the prospect – quite the opposite in fact. “Our target is to become the major global player in farming and food sectors, for the benefit of future generations,” he tells The CEO Magazine from new company headquarters inside the futuristic Tour Carpe Diem skyscraper in Paris – La Défense.
Thierry Blandinières sees the glass half full
It’s apparent that Thierry is more than a glass-half-full kind of business leader – he’s one who is brimming with optimism. “The world is open, and it is changing very fast – new opportunities are presenting themselves every day. It is important to think positive, and the best will happen. As the song goes: ‘Always look on the bright side of life,’” he smiles.
Thierry clearly practises what he preaches. When he joined InVivo Group in late 2013, the business had barely scraped together a total consolidated net income of €100,000 in the previous financial year. In the 2015-16 financial year, this figure had catapulted to €55 million. But turning around businesses in difficulty is this Frenchman’s speciality.
“Of course, it was important to reshape the economic profile, adding value businesses and stopping the losses,” Thierry responds when asked how he’s accomplished so much, so quickly. “I had to introduce a whole new business model for the company.”
InVivo Group goes global
This involved defining the company’s 3 fields of expertise: agriculture, nutrition and animal health, and retail (a fourth, wine, was added when InVivo Wine was established in July 2015) – along with the launch of a new strategy called ‘2025 by InVivo’. “To capitalise on growth in emerging countries, the internationalisation of our 4 branches of operation quickly became a top priority,” Thierry explains.
“The need for InVivo Group to become more global is at the core of this strategy,” he continues, emphasising the opportunity the company has to give French agricultural cooperatives the chance to claim their rightful place in the global food chain as the world prepares to feed 8 billion mouths in less than 10 years’ time.
The need for InVivo Group to become more global is at the core of this strategy.
InVivo Group unites 220 member cooperatives from across France, who themselves represent more than 300,000 farmers – making it France’s leading agricultural cooperative group. Although the company in its current incarnation was established in 2001, its roots lie in the agricultural cooperative unions formed in the 40s and 50s.
InVivo Tech 2020
Today, it already boasts an impressive global reach: almost 80% of its employees are based outside of France at sites across 31 countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam and Indonesia. But after what he calls a conservative approach to growth on both local and international scales, Thierry believes that the time has come to put the foot on the accelerator – and has identified digital transformation as an important tool to help the company achieve this.
“We have recently launched InVivo Tech 2020, an ambitious digital transformation program that reflects a shift in our corporate culture, away from old-school business models towards the promotion of new ideas, new talent, and exciting initiatives,” he explains.
“InVivo Tech 2020 will contribute to the start-up spirit and entrepreneurial culture that we are really looking to promote,” he continues. Two seed funds worth €5 million each have been created to finance innovative start-ups in the agricultural space: InVivo Invest for disruptive projects in agriculture, retail and wine, and Neovia Venture for similar ventures in nutrition and animal health.
Collaboration equals innovation
Thierry explains that two brick-and-mortar settings will also provide a focal point for the transformation. Last year, Neovia, the nutrition and animal health subsidiary of InVivo Group, opened We’nov, a global innovation centre in Brittany.
“The aim of the centre is to promote a collaborative environment where innovative ideas are conceived together with Neovia’s network of internal and external partners,” he explains. Later this spring, in the southern French city of Montpellier, its agricultural arm – InVivo Agriculture – is set to open the doors on what it calls its ‘Studio agrodigital’ as it continues to invest in digital agriculture innovations.
Collaboration with partners who share Thierry’s vision is crucial as they work together towards a single ambition. “This global transformation plan involves a lot of stakeholders, public institutions and private companies. They, like us, are very motivated to build a strong image of the French art de vivre,” he explains.
“Investing in the trades and tools of the future affirms our trust in French agriculture to produce more, and better, and to really take its place on the world stage.”
Great article.