The Compagnie du Radis, What's that?

The Radish Company is a new adventure that is, as often happens, a conjunction of factors and actors. The actors are Renauld, the father, and Hugo, the son.

Renauld, 52 years old, is active in IT and has completed his last contract at Soil Capital, a company active in promoting regenerative agriculture. In recent years, Renauld has grown convinced that it was time for him to do something else. The few years spent at SoilCapital have clearly directed him towards work related to the Earth, respect for ecosystems, and local consumption.

On his side, Hugo, 22 years old, is finishing his Marketing studies and is eager to embark on an adventure where he can put into practice what he has learned while nurturing his entrepreneurial spirit.

In addition, there is the opportunity represented by a 30-are plot of land that was previously cultivated (traditionally) and that can be exploited by the family again starting this fall.

It seems that the stars are aligned to do something good, don't you think?

The project

The project is to create a regenerative vegetable garden and sell its produce locally in the smoothest way possible, meaning without constraints for our customers. By constraints, we mean, for example, the obligation to pick up vegetables during a certain time slot, having minimum quantities to order, or having to take a subscription.

To do this, we plan to create a user-friendly website where users can select products and quantities to assemble their vegetable basket in just a few clicks. They will be able to pick up their basket directly from the garden during "business hours" or it will be waiting for them in a street vending machine.

Of course, everyone will be able to visit the garden to stock up directly without going through the website. The idea is that you can order what you need and pick it up at any time of the day or night. In summary, healthy, local, and available products.

To this, we hope to be able to add a community dimension as well as a transformation activity for unsold items, but everything in its own time, and this will be the subject of other blogs. 

Et sinon, concrètement ?

Good question!

This summer we set up a test garden of 2 ares and we have been testing, in recent weeks, whether there was interest in our vegetables. We simply placed a small "stall" on the street in front of our house and we found that there was a real interest and positive feedback on our vegetables. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated in this test, which is now complete.

It is an encouraging first step that has reassured us in our decision to formalize the venture and undertake the initial actions that are, like for many businesses, administrative!

Since then, we have started the creation of the company Compagnie du Radis SRL with our accountant. We contacted the municipality, which directed us to the Walloon Region, to whom we apparently need to present our project. We reached out to them to schedule a meeting, but we have not yet received a response from them. To be continued! 

Finally, we also get in touch with local market gardeners.

And finally, we created the site you are on 😉

The next steps

In the coming weeks, we will continue to work on the administrative aspects of the project while also addressing its financial aspect, which mainly involves defining the crop plan. See you next week for more...

Hugo and Renauld

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