Grain de Sail: roaster, chocolat maker, pioneer of modern wind ship and a company committed to CSR

guillaume, January 11, 2024

When brothers Jacques and Olivier Barreau embarked on their new project in 2010, it was with the clearly stated aim of reviving carbon-free shipping. Barely ten years later, their dream became a reality with the first transatlantic crossing of their cargo sailboat Grain de Sail I. To see it through, they developed a unique business model. After opening a coffee roasting plant and a chocolate factory in Morlaix, and developing a business selling exceptional French organic wines in New York, Grain de Sail also became a shipowner and freight forwarder. As their second ship, Grain de Sail II, also prepares to sail to the American coast, the Morlaix-based company has adopted an inspiring eco-responsible approach, combining quality, a taste for adventure and sustainable development in all its actions.

Stefan Gallard, Marketing Director at Grain de Sail, tells us more about the projects of this leading CSR figure.

How did the Grain de Sail project start ?

From their official creation in 2012, the Barreau brothers have sought to combine an environmental approach based on low-carbon shipping, with a business approach that is as virtuous as possible, based on a strong social project. To achieve this, they first created a land-based agri-food business, destined to be coupled with a maritime business. It all started with coffee roasting in 2012, followed by the chocolate-making part in 2015. In 2018, Grain de Sail signed with a shipyard to launch the construction of our first cargo sailboat. The second boat is delivered at the end of 2023 and will be commissioned in a few weeks’ time in early 2024. Reversing the project and starting with this agri-food business has enabled us to do two things. On the one hand, production needs generated transport needs, so we knew what we were going to transport on the ship. And secondly, the sale of our products has enabled us to generate the financing capacity that is essential for such projects. Since its creation, over 500 tonnes of chocolate bars and almost 100 tonnes of coffee have been sold each year in Brittany, Pays de la Loire, Normandy and the Paris region.

Jacques et Olivier Barreau, les cofondateurs de Grain de Sail.

Grain de Sail, an adventure based on three precepts

On what values ​​is Grain de Sail’s approach based today ?

Three values are essential to us. First, the quality of our products and services is paramount. This means a great deal of upstream sourcing for the manufacture of our coffees and chocolate, as well as mastery of our production tools and the development of recipes with highly skilled people. A great deal is done to obtain very high quality products. A taste for adventure is also at the heart of our history. Our maritime adventure stands out from many other players on the market, but it’s also a human adventure, and a corporate adventure where we try to do things differently. Last but not least, sustainable development is a key issue for us today, and we are working on its 3 aspects – environmental, social and economic – in parallel.

When it comes to the environment, how does the company stand out ?

The environmental axis is represented for us by our ships, but not only. Our fleet is entirely sail-powered, in order to transport more, but fundamentally also to transport less. This reflection on the way we consume and produce goes far beyond Grain de Sail. Transporting less means asking ourselves what is worth transporting. When a product justifies being transported, then the question arises of transporting it better. Let’s make the effort, wherever possible, to take a more environmentally responsible approach. Typically, for coffee and chocolate, either we do without them here in Europe, or we try to take as environmentally responsible an approach as possible. For these two products, we have no choice but to source the raw material from Africa or Latin America. So either we do without them altogether, or we work upstream on sourcing with plantations that work organically, in agroforestry systems, on small farms, as Grain de Sail does. And then, to cross the 5 to 7,000 km that separate us from the supplier countries, the question of means of transport really arises. Behind all this, the fundamental issue is to consume less: giving priority to quality over quantity. So there’s also work to be done around the consumer. Yes, our chocolate costs more, but the price is justified. We’re aiming for a price of 3 euros for a 100g bar of organic chocolate, which is premium in supermarkets, but clearly not on the chocolate market. A large part of our price is linked to the fact that we buy our raw materials organically. If we add to this the 10 to 12 cent cost of transport by cargo ship, our small size, which doesn’t allow us to achieve economies of scale, and our purchasing policy based on fair trade, we can easily come up with a 1 euro difference with our competitors. So yes, we could go beyond 3 euros, but that wouldn’t be sustainable. Our products would no longer be accessible to a certain segment of the population. And yet, many of our customers make a politically committed purchase. Our pricing approach aims to maintain this equation. And when feasible, we also consider repatriating production to work locally as much as possible. Beyond the fact that Grain de Sail produces in Brittany, this also means favoring local, even Breton, suppliers, while meeting our specifications. We manage to do a lot in Brittany, whether with design firms for our factories, industrial partners or ingredient suppliers (like the milk supplied by Sill). So let’s try to consume less, but better, and give priority to short supply chains. And then, when it’s not possible to consume locally, let’s think about how to get these raw materials to us. And if it’s realistic and feasible, let’s use other means of transport. In this way, the carbon savings generated by bicycle transport are in excess of 95%. Our founders are also experts in renewable energies. One is a trained heating engineer, the other a materials engineer. The Barreau brothers therefore have a well-developed sensitivity, but also a fairly detailed knowledge, which enabled us to think about the design of our production tools. For our new chocolate factory opening in Morlaix in 2021, 1200 m² of photovoltaic panels have been installed on the roof.

The 2,500 m² building is as energy-efficient as possible: design and insulation have been worked on to the maximum, as have heat recovery systems, double-flow ventilation and closed-circuit water consumption. Our boats are also equipped with photovoltaic panels on deck. Hydrogenerators, a double-flow system and very high levels of insulation further enhance their energy performance. This is also the first time that a pellet boiler has been incorporated on a merchant marine vessel.

We take a global view of our environmental impact, from the field to the plate, including the end-of-life of our packaging. Today, 96% of our packaging is made of cardboard, which is a real challenge for Grain de Sail, as it must be as environmentally-friendly as possible, while complying with food standards and protecting the product without altering its taste. In terms of waste, the most important is cardboard, which is relatively easy to manage. With chocolate, we have very little waste. And what’s practical with this raw material is that everything can be re-melted. We have set up a bulk sales system in our boutique. As for coffee residues, they are recycled in horticultural settings, replacing wood chips for example. An experiment is underway in textile dyeing.

How is the social dimension expressed ?

Our flagship policy, even if we don’t necessarily emphasize it very often, is to promote the integration of people with disabilities. Initially, the chocolate factory was based directly on the premises of ESAT Les Genêts d’Or in Morlaix to facilitate this partnership. We worked hand in hand, having brought our machines and our team. Eventually, we outgrew the premises. So, when we built our own chocolate factory in 2021, we made special arrangements to accommodate people in sheltered employment. Today, around fifteen people from the ESAT work with us every day, along with their supervisors. We really like this inclusion and awareness. It’s a two-way learning process. As regards our salary policy, all our teams are paid at least 18% above the minimum wage. The gap between the lowest and highest salaries (including general management) is only 1 to 3. It’s symbolic, but also tangible. To come and work at Grain de Sail, particularly in management positions, this sacrifice has to be accepted on behalf of the group. This approach enables us to have an extremely low turnover rate, especially in these management positions. Everyone is prepared to make this sacrifice, and is very much in tune with the company’s values. Our social commitment is also demonstrated by our support for various associations. And more recently, we have set up a shared-product sponsorship agreement with Océanopolis Acts. This partnership reinforces our mutual desire to act today for a better tomorrow, and to develop “meaningful” activities that respect our planet. Between North America and the Caribbean, our yachts also provide humanitarian transport for medical equipment. A foundation in New York collects this equipment from clinics and hospitals. It is then redistributed to local non-governmental organizations in Guadeloupe and the Dominican Republic, for field hospitals or mobile clinics.

How to maintain the company’s long-term viability ?

For a company to be sustainable, it needs to be financially viable, to support itself and provide for salaries, investments and so on. Grain de Sail is a family business, 90% owned by Jacques and Olivier Barreau. There are no dividends, even for other shareholders. We don’t have a problem making money, it’s just that the company has to be profitable. But the big question today is, where does the money go? At Grain de Sail, all profits are reinvested in the company. This is what enables us to continue with this rather ambitious project, especially from a capital point of view. Three years ago, we also set up Grain de Sail Participations. This gives our employees the opportunity to acquire shares in the holding company, and to benefit from the capital gains they generate for the company. Today, more than half our employees have made this choice. Economic performance and sound management of the company’s resources have enabled us to bring our various projects to fruition. This shows that a financially well-managed company can reconcile social and environmental values with economic sustainability.

What improvements do you intend to make to this CSR approach in the years ahead ?

Grain de Sail has just been awarded the PME+ label. This CSR label for independent French companies supplying food and non-food retail outlets is promoted by the Fédération des Entreprises et Entrepreneurs de France (FEEF). The label is awarded following an external on-site audit by Ecocert Environnement. A minimum compliance level of 65% must be achieved to obtain the label, and Grain de Sail was delighted to obtain 91% for its first audit! Up until now, we’ve done a lot of things ourselves, with the values and convictions we hold dear. This audit validates our intuition and our achievements. This in-depth work began three years ago with the CSR obligations for “Produit en Bretagne”, the brand for responsible Breton know-how. And a year and a half ago, we continued this work with the EcoVadis solution, which has enabled us to identify opportunities and sometimes shortcomings. We’re still a small company, having started up only 10 years ago, so this work has enabled us to structure our documentation. At the same time, ISO 9001 certification for the chocolate factory in spring 2023 has completed the formalization of our CSR approach. One of our objectives, within the next 1 or 2 years, is to obtain the B-Corp label, which recognizes companies with a positive impact. It is quite comprehensive in its approach and well recognized internationally. Another recurring theme at Grain de Sail is finding solutions for the distribution of our products in France. We voluntarily reduce the radius of goodwill to less than 500 km from our production units. As we are currently present in 1,300 points of sale, we are obliged to use our trucks to deliver our products. We remain very vigilant about this, but solutions are currently lacking. Of course, the existing infrastructure works well, but it’s still very carbon-intensive. One of the ideas we’ve come up with is to bring our production units as close as possible to consumers. A new chocolate-making and roasting plant is due to come on stream in Dunkirk in late 2024 or 2025. This would bring us closer to the Paris basin, and open up northern and eastern France to us, while also being geographically interesting for export. In the long term, another chocolate factory in the South-West of France is also a possibility, to enable us to dock our ships and produce locally.

Why choose not to be Fairtrade certified ?

There are several reasons for our choice. Firstly, working with certification bodies means that they get a share. The question is: how much is actually redistributed to the producers? Secondly, Grain de Sail only works in two countries (the Dominican Republic and Peru, soon to be joined by Ecuador) and only a few cooperatives, with producers we know and with whom we have been trading for years. We only have one intermediary and prefer to negotiate with them directly. We trust them, and we pay premiums directly to the cooperatives. Our system may not be perfect, but we are taking on this responsibility, ensuring a ‘decent income’ for producers, as fair trade does, while building their loyalty.

Are there any limits to combining CSR with a taste for adventure ?

I often say that if you ask yourself the right questions, you get the best answers. We’re always asking ourselves those questions. What’s the next step? How can we ensure consistency in all aspects of the Grain de Sail project? Sometimes we identify things ourselves, sometimes it’s feedback from consumers, experts, various exchanges or even audits. It’s all a question of timing. At Grain de Sail we often talk about ‘development sequences’. We sometimes identify actions or projects that we are not in a position to carry out at the moment, because the solutions have not yet been industrialised, because of human resources capacity, because of adaptations to be made internally or simply for budgetary reasons. So we say to ourselves that we’ll manage to do it, but by sequencing it over time, by keeping a watchful eye, with a roadmap for getting there.

Grain de Sail II, following in its big brother’s footsteps

How will the cargo sailboat Grain de Sail II help to reinforce your actions?

Grain de Sail II will enable us to move towards 100% carbon-free transport for our green coffees and cocoa. Arriving in France at the end of November 2023, it will be operational at the beginning of 2024. Its first transatlantic departure is scheduled for February. With a carrying capacity of 238 pallets, i.e. 350 tonnes, this 52 m long schooner will provide a groupage service for palletised goods, managed from the fleet’s logistics hub in Saint-Malo. With a cruising speed of 11 to 12 knots, it will be able to sail from Saint-Malo to New York in 15 to 18 days, significantly reducing carbon emissions. 3 to 5 transatlantic crossings per year are therefore envisaged, compared with 2 today with Grain de Sail I. This new sea route will also provide a low-carbon transport service for customers. Today, manufacturers of high value-added products are already using Grain de Sail Logistics to transport wine, spirits, perfume, leather goods, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. The wine industry in France is beginning to expand, and Grain de Sail, a pioneer in the decarbonisation of modern maritime transport, intends to continue to lead this market.