A production line at the Eurial yogurt factory on September 6, 2022 in Jouy, Yonne (AFP / Eric PIERMONT)
Filled with cow’s milk from all over northern France, gleaming tankers are lined up in front of the Eurial yogurt factory in Jouy in Yonne, a hundred kilometers from Paris, one of the largest important in France, very consuming of a gas that has become precious.
Here, as in all factories of its kind, the gas is used to immediately pasteurize, by heating, the milk that the tanker trucks transfer into huge vertical steel tanks, following meticulous quality controls carried out in each truck at the arrival.
A milk that will then be ready to be transformed into yogurt or another dairy product, before reaching the supermarket shelves without delay.
The general manager of Eurial Ultrafrais, a subsidiary of the Agrial cooperative, Patrick Falconnier, confides his concerns as European industry fears a total stoppage of Russian gas deliveries in the coming months: “We have been informed of the possibility of having gas cuts at certain times of winter, and for us it is very serious,” he told AFP.
In this factory, which employs 461 people and will celebrate its 100th anniversary on September 30, a stoppage of activity for lack of energy, “it’s unheard of”, for him.
Milk storage tanks at the Eurial yogurt factory, September 6, 2022 in Jouy, Yonne (AFP / Eric PIERMONT)
Ditto for the four other factories of the group, where a total of a thousand people work, 90% occupied on production lines of products bearing the brand of major distributors, in France and in several European countries.
Eurial also produces a few brands of its own, such as Soignon, 300 organic dairy products, and A vélo.
– “we’re going to throw away the milk” –
If it is impossible to pasteurize it due to a lack of gas, “we will no longer be able to receive the milk, that means that we stop collecting it, and it’s dramatic for our producers, because we’re going to throw the milk away”, worries Mr. Falconnier, who also chairs Syndifrais, the professional union bringing together 22 yogurt manufacturers, or 70% of French production.
A production line at the Eurial yogurt factory on September 6, 2022 in Jouy, Yonne (AFP / Eric PIERMONT)
The consequence of cuts might be a shortage in supermarkets, delivered just in time: “We manufacture products that have an average lifespan of 30 days. And we manufacture to sell the next day. When I stop a factory, I stop producing, and I stop selling, so I can no longer supply my customers”.
For him “more gas” is “more yogurt”: a daily drama in the country which holds the second place in the world for yogurt eaters, behind the Netherlands.
After the “painful episode” of Covid, where the company had to manage as best it might the absenteeism of up to 30% of its staff by managing the morale of its teams, and this year “the enormous inflations” of 20% on average suffered on the prices of raw materials (fruit, plastic, cardboard packaging, energy, etc.), the prospect of gas cuts next winter looks like the last blow of fate.
A production line at the Eurial yogurt factory on September 6, 2022 in Jouy, Yonne (AFP / Eric PIERMONT)
“There, we are weakened, that is to say that we cannot afford to have other disasters such as factory shutdowns, it is not possible”, pleads Mr. Falconnier, emphasizing that this situation affects all ultra-fresh manufacturers in France.
He would like the yogurt sector, “essential products that cannot be stored when we stop producing them”, to be recognized as “essential” and exempt from gas cuts.
“We were told that we were a priority and essential to the functioning of the country when there was the Covid. And we did what was necessary to be able to supply the stores to supply products daily “, he recalls.
The energy transition? Replacing Russian gas with methanisation gas, he is thinking regarding it of course, but not all at once, it takes “five to ten years”, according to him.
A production line at the Eurial yogurt factory on September 6, 2022 in Jouy, Yonne (AFP / Eric PIERMONT)
While the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, and the Minister of Industry, Roland Lescure, meet with industrial federations on Wednesday to launch consultations on the necessary energy sobriety in industry and a reduction of 10 % of energy consumption within two years, Mr. Falconnier believes that this subject “is envisaged in the medium term with stages”.
“We can’t make investments for six-month periods, that’s not possible. Overnight, no longer supplying a factory means shutting it down. We don’t know how to manage otherwise”.
