Passion for top-quality meat

Fresh and traceable

In 1999, Dominique Lormeau considered starting SENV to supply professional customers with quality meat. “Butchers, wholesalers, cash & carry stores, catering kitchens, the food industry, … our customers are diverse, but they do all want the same guarantees: quality, freshness and traceability. I have a real passion for meat, so they are important characteristics for me. Thanks to our economy of scale, we can fulfil demand at keen prices. And that way everyone is happy,” smiles Dominique Lormeau.

“Fresh and continuous supply”

The Société Européenne Négoce de Viandes has already been working with Dutch Food Experts for two years. “Originally, we mostly sold red meat, but over the last few years we have noticed an increasing demand for poultry. The cooperation with Dutch Food Experts not only ensures that we can service a section of the market for existing customers, but that we can also expand a new customer base who are primarily interested in chicken, but who, thanks to our service and product range, often opt for a more extensive cooperation with us. Today, chicken is about 10% of our volume, a percentage that is on the up. So it is a win-win situation for us,” says Lormeau.

‘Dutch Food Experts listens to you’

But why exactly did SENV opt for Dutch Food Experts? “We used to meet each other by chance previously, but entered a cooperation for a number of reasons. First of all, for the personal contact. I now count the Dutch Food Experts management as close friends, that is how good our relationship is."  

"It is a company that truly listens to your needs and caters to them. They are very responsive; you can ask them anything. But the chief reason is of course the products they supply. Always fresh, of impeccable quality and the high volume of the supply is constant, allowing us to meet our customer demand. This is how all suppliers should be.”

The biggest fresh produce market in Europe

SENV purchases two types of chicken from Dutch Food Experts: standard meat and halal meat. “France has a large Maghreb community,” explains Lormeau. “So the market for Halal meat is a big one, certainly around Paris. It is a market that is of special interest to us.”

The company operates from Rungis, to the southeast of Paris, where the biggest fresh produce market in Europe is located. With a total floorspace of 232 hectares, of which almost a third is covered, it supplies the entire Paris region and upon expansion other large parts of France. Fruit and vegetables, fish and meat are delivered from across Europe each day by road, rail and air. The SENV warehouse is therefore ideally located for receiving and shipping the meat products to customers as fresh as possible.

Spotting and grabbing new opportunities

Dominique Lormeau is a true entrepreneur and uses his knowledge of the market to establish new initiatives. Through market studies and through listening to customers, he knows exactly what and where the needs are. He says that he sees this same spirit in Dutch Food Experts.

One of the trends he has focused more on in the last few years is organic meat. “In comparison to the rest of our activities, organic is a niche market, but we see that demand is increasing and that it is also attracting attention, and that it puts the love of the product in the spotlight. As a meat lover, I can only applaud this ,” says Lormeau.

Daily fresh meat from a vending machine

Another change that Lormeau has seen is a lack of time for working people who sometimes cannot get to the butcher’s, but who still want fresh produce. To be able to offer them high-quality fresh meat, he has worked out a new concept for the distribution via meat vending machines.

“The concept is called Beef-take, but of course the intention is to offer chicken and other meats too. I have been working on this for more than 10 years, and the development has taken a lot of time, but it is all about to become a reality very soon. The intention is to offer daily-fresh meat, cooled and in ideal circumstances, in locations with high traffic volumes: train stations, filling stations, but also camp sites for example. So you no longer have to purchase meat for the rest of the week during the weekend, but just before you cook, you can pick up a piece of fresh meat when it is most convenient for you to do so. There is an entire ecosystem behind the deliveries and the vending machines can communicate with customers,” Lormeau explains enthusiastically.

A man with fighting spirit and ambition, that much is clear. Dutch Food Experts is extremely delighted to count him among its customer base!