An infrastructure to revive agricultural sectors
Developed since 2017 by Hortense Harang and Chloé Rossignol, WeTradeLocal is a tech platform that connects local agricultural production units of all sizes with independent artisanal transformation units and decarbonized logistics means of distribution, in order to meet the growing consumer demand for local products that are accessible in terms of price and service.
Fleurs d’ici is the first entrepreneurial illustration of this vision. In a market where 9 out of 10 flowers are imported, leading to heavy social and environmental consequences, Fleurs d’Ici is the first brand to offer ethical 100% local and seasonal flower products to businesses and individuals throughout France.
By combining economic performance and impact through tech, Fleurs d’Ici has developed a system of supply, transformation and sales in short circuits that relies on the artisanal know-how of a network of over a thousand committed partners (horticultural producers, florist artisans, responsible delivery drivers…).
Through its action, Fleurs d’Ici thus reduces the carbon footprint of the sector by 30.
Fleurs d’Ici has several tens of thousands of individual customers and over 200 business customers, including LVMH, Orange, the Stade de France consortium and the Regional Council of Ile de France for which it provides regular flower arrangement services in premises.
An investment that illustrates 2050 agro-food strategy
2050 was the main investor in the WeTradeLocal series A initiative, the first achievement of which is the company Fleurs d’ici. This investment is an opportunity for 2050 to implement and share the lessons learned from the Fleurs d’ici strategy aimed at reshaping the French horticultural value chain in an ecosystemic approach, in order to support the deployment of other verticals in the agro-food sector.
As part of its “Eat enough and well” strategy, 2050 wishes to finance the emergence of an agro-food system that reconnects with the fertility of soils and seeds and secures the economic equation of all actors in the chain, in order to offer nutritional quality to all. The fund has thus identified several critical points throughout the agro-food chain, such as the upgrading of producers, access to land, adapted insurance products, the upgrading of retailers, the rise of alternative challengers, etc.
The Fleurs d’ici model developed by WTL represents an opportunity for 2050 to:
- Develop a powerful French horticultural sector
- Integrate and disseminate the lessons of this strategy to apply them to other sectors
- Demonstrate that the multi-local approach can be internationalized
- Strengthen biodiversity on French territory and the resilience of our natural ecosystem through the strengthening of the presence of flowers on agricultural land, refuges for pollinators.
Marie Ekeland and Anne-lise Bance, who led this investment at 2050, commented:
“WeTradeLocal stands out for its integrated approach to all actors within a value chain, a guarantee of optimization of economic and environmental performance. This ecosystemic vision, carried by the founders, is fully in line with 2050’s investment thesis. Indeed, as part of its “eat enough, eat healthfully” strategy, 2050 wishes to finance the emergence of an agro-food system that reconnects with the fertility of soils, strengthens biodiversity and secures the economic equation of all actors in the chain in order to offer qualitative and sustainable products that meet consumer expectations. The demonstration of a successful scaling up of the multi-local model, tested with success by WeTradeLocal technology on flowers, opens up beautiful growth prospects aligned with other sectors, notably internationally.”
