One to One Customer Experience was held from October 1 to 3 in Biarritz. The event, which celebrated its 10th anniversary, is still magnificently organized by Sonia Mamin and her teams.
On this occasion, we interviewed Sidonie Tagliante, Marketing, Communication and CSR Director of Naturalia.
The first certified B Corp distributor in France, Naturalia, a pioneering brand in specialized organic food distribution, celebrated its 51st anniversary this year. With 230 stores in mainland France, the French Overseas Territories, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and an e-commerce site, Naturalia has a turnover of 350 million euros.
How do you analyze the post-Covid organic crisis?
The organic market has been growing at double digits for more than 20 years. In 2020, Naturalia saw very strong growth of up to 22%. Then from 2021, it was a cold shower for market players, despite health being placed at the heart of the debates and the attention given to environmental issues in the media.
In reality, there were many players, because it was a market that was doing well, therefore potentially developing faster than the rate of growth of the market. The rise of various labels and the attention paid to local in supermarkets have disrupted the visibility of organic in supermarkets, contributing to this crisis.
Naturalia, however, has returned to positive growth since the start of the year.
How did you return to growth?
We have put retail back at the center. We have been much more managerial than in previous years, closed stores, and refocused our brand strategy on the customer experience. We were interested in irritants among consumers. The idea was to get back into the customer experience by focusing on the obstacles, from the idea of organic to the store experience. We relied on digital tools to improve our performance, in particular by monitoring store priorities and tracking the Net Promoter Score (NPS) daily via an integrated solution.
Can you tell us more about the use of digital in your operations?
Although the organic market is perceived as artisanal, we actually use a lot of digital tools. NPS, for example, allows each store to track its major actions. NPS has become central to the way we work because it allows teams to focus on their priorities.
For merchandising, we analyze data on product behavior on shelves (stock, restocking, margins) to ask the right questions. Are best sellers valued? Is it better to develop products that have a margin or is it more about enhancing the image – price?
We also use B Corp’s B Impact Assessment, which allows us to analyze nearly 350 items to improve our CSR commitments.
Digital is not seen in an organic store, but it is in fact very present.
How do you rely on digital to improve the consumer experience?
E-commerce remains a key point, we are working to have the most comfortable site possible, more adapted delivery, and a loyalty program that responds to our consumers’ concerns. In-store, tools like QR codes have been tested to enrich the experience, but I think more intuitive solutions, like mobile notifications, could be effective. The customer, when he is in the store, behaves quite simply
On CSR, how does it fit into your marketing?
CSR is at the heart of our strategy and in particular our brand strategy. At Naturalia, CSR is present in all departments and we have governance around a CSR committee which brings together around ten volunteer employees from different departments. We define common operational objectives with an annual roadmap, which we share with our stores and our stakeholders.
For example, we have focused on eliminating products containing nitrites and by November, all of our deli meats will be 100% organic and nitrite-free.
We have the advantage of being part of a market where consumer confidence is quite strong. So CSR and communication and marketing can only be thought of together, based on our commitments. Among other examples: periodic protections, by showing that we have specifications where our competition does not. The idea is not to tell a beautiful story, but our story, the things that we are capable of doing and to which we are committed.
It is also a unifying approach internally which also gives meaning to our employees.
CSR: what concrete impact?
When we approached our committee in 2016, we posed a form of self-criticism, we went deeper into the concept of organic and CSR. We were interested in the carbon footprint, the social impact, the value chain, etc. Our CSR commitment goes beyond products. We focus in particular on future issues such as water management which is not necessarily handled by distributors, but rather by producers or manufacturers.
We are the only distributor in France certified B Corp and are currently in the re-certification process. It is a demanding label and you must be able to measure and systematically provide evidence.
Generative bio and AI: two major trends to follow?
Concerning regenerative organic, we are aware that a new type of agriculture is coming. There was conventional agriculture which made it possible to produce significantly after the wars but which had its pitfalls. Organic arrived by trying to preserve the health of farmers and that of consumers while avoiding polluting the environment. Now, we realize that with climate issues that the ideal of tomorrow will be regenerative organic, in particular to regulate water, retain carbon, and promote biodiversity. Naturalia co-founded the “Lively Earth” collective to explore these issues with brands like “Alpina Savoie”, “Omie” and “Axa climate”. The idea is to transform the agriculture of tomorrow and make it a regenerative solution rather than a problem.
From a digital point of view, AI is the hot topic for customer advice. When we have hundreds of customers per day, in an ideal world we would have an AI capable of meeting customer expectations. This would be the Holy Grail from a retail point of view!
