A brand that belongs to farmers – what does that mean?

Behind Paysan Breton, 4800 farmers

Paysan Breton was founded in 1969 by farmers who came together to improve their dairy production, make a better living and ensure the transfer of their farms to the following generations. Fifty years later, our aim is still the same

A fully transparent approach

Our structure is both remarkably simple and a little complicated. Let us explain:

• Our farmers are organised into three Cooperatives located in Brittany and Pays de la Loire. The Cooperatives are companies owned by farmers. There are no private shareholders: in our Cooperatives, our farmers are the “shareholders” – known as farmer members. There are 4800 farmers in our organisation.
• Our company, which is owned by these three Cooperatives, has its head office in Brest (Finistère) and seven manufacturing sites distributed across Brittany and Loire-Atlantique, close to our farmers and their milk.
• The company is managed by a Board of Directors comprising nine farmers elected by our members to take decisions on behalf of the company.

The number of farmer members has expanded and our company has grown over the last 50 years but farmers and product quality remain our central focus.

Quality

We are committed to ensuring that our products are good for you, good for our farmers and good for the locality. This virtuous circle benefits everyone and we have been promoting it for 50 years now.

Our farmers play a key role in this circle. Offering the very best dairy products helps secure our farmers’ futures and thanks to them our products are manufactured with a top-quality ingredient – their milk.

What’s the difference between a Cooperative and a private company?

There are many differences!

• We don't have any private shareholders: Paysan Breton is owned by farmers.
• Ours is a long-term relationship: because Paysan Breton production tools belong to our farmer members, our relationship is not a commercial one based on the concept of supplier and customer but rather on long-term cooperation. This ensures members’ incomes over the long term.
• Farmers making decisions for farmers: farmers are entitled to vote in the Cooperatives (1 farmer = 1 vote) to elect farmers to represent them and to take major decisions on behalf of the company – regarding milk prices or investments for example. These elected farmers make up the Board of Directors.
• Financial return at the end of the year: our farmers are paid for their milk on a monthly basis. Milk prices are determined by our elected farmers, who endeavour to find the right balance between ensuring farmers’ incomes and maintaining the market competitiveness of the Cooperatives to ensure our sustainability into the future. We also pay bonuses based on milk quality. Lastly, a key feature of the Cooperatives is that farmers receive a share of the company’s profits at the end of each year.
• Local production that cannot be transferred elsewhere: our mission is to showcase our farmers’ milk. Therefore, our manufacturing sites are located close to our farms and cannot be relocated. At Paysan Breton, we are committed to manufacturing our products using only milk from Brittany and Pays de la Loire, where our members are based.
• We provide support at several levels: through their Cooperative, farmers can access start-up assistance, farm management training, and advice from a dairy technician and a nutritionist to help them produce the best quality milk while ensuring their animals’ welfare.

Find out more with profiles of our farmers or check out our values:

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Choose quality products and locally produced food

In choosing Paysan Breton, you are getting quality products while defending farmers’ rights.

For 50 years, our belief has been that the best way of supporting our farmers is to turn their milk into quality products. We have very stringent specifications:

• The milk must come from Brittany or Pays de la Loire
• It must not contain any artificial preservatives, colourings or flavourings
• Made in Brittany or Loire Atlantique
• Local ingredients where possible – currently 99% of the ingredients we use are French. For instance, we are the only brand to offer all our cheese spreads with seasoning sourced in France.
• More responsible packaging is one of the key areas we actively focus on and we have had some notable success: we have removed the cardboard sleeve from our Madame Loïk Whipped Cheese, using recyclable packaging from sustainably managed sources. We have also changed the packaging on our filled crêpes and are now the leading brand in the use of recyclable packaging in this area.

Take a look at our products and treat yourself while supporting farmers. Bon appétit!