Roullier Group: How we serve the Chinese crop nutritional market ?

 

 

 

Founded by Daniel Roullier, Timac started out in 1959 on the docks of Saint-Malo (in France). As a specialist in plant, animal and human nutrition, it drives strong development in its global activities through a firm, dynamic and enterprising structure. Roullier Group develops in 14 industries, has achieved a turnover of 3.1 billion of euros, established branch-corporation in 46 countries in the world, products sold to 111 countries and regions, more than 8000 employees worldwide. Roullier group started the business in China at 2014, founded Timab (Beijing) Trading Co., Ltd., settled offices in Beijing, Qingdao, Chengdu and Guangzhou, and has more than 200 people of employees. We operate two brands in China for now, Timacagro and Vitas. These two brands are selling on the market a wide range of products to cover most of the farmers needs and involving the latest technologies developed by the Groupe Roullier.

 

 

Timab Beijing, company created in 2014, has trained more than a hundred of technicians over the last 2 years (2020 Objectives: 1000) who meet on a daily basis the farmers of Shandong , Sichuan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan in order to present them fertilization plans, in which every nutrients is brought to the plant, in order to avoid vaporization or leaking into the soil. The permanent training of our teams, the daily contacts with the farmers in their fields and the technology of our products are the innovative innovation of our company.

 

 

AS we have no others offices so far in other Asia Pacific market, It is quite difficult to answer. Nevertheless, each market has its own specificity but, at the end of the day, farmers & distributors are all looking for new technologies and business, which help them to develop their activity. 

 

The two main opportunities on the Chinese markets are represented by the strong will of the administration to improve the yield of the current agriculture and the development of a sustainable agriculture. Regarding the first point, even if the average yield is already correct, there is room for improvement by bringing new technologies and additional training, as we do in the Groupe Roullier.  Regarding the second point, in the context of the 0% growth of fertilizer use by 2020, the sustainable development has become a national concern. Thanks to our technology and R&D center, we have been able to develop technology which reduces the vaporization, leaking and increase the uptake of nutrients by the crops. In the Groupe Roullier, we believe in fertilizers that bring the maximum of the nutrient to the crops.

Meanwhile, the main challenges that we are facing is the diversity of the market, in terms of crops and of local technics. Nevertheless, thanks to our very local implementation, we are able to collect all these datas and come up with very local solutions adapted to the farmers and distribution needs.

 

 

The portfolio of the Groupe Roullier is organized around three granular products and, one foliar biostimulant and two root biostimulants. We have water soluble fertilizers and other product under registration process as well.

With the current portfolio, we are able to address most of the concerns of the problems met by the farmers. Our granular products, thanks to our group technology, are designed to have a specific nutrient delivery in the context of acidic soil. On the top of that, thanks to our unique industrial facilities, we are able to adjust the balance of our granular product to the local needs. We have already adapted several time our different balances since we sell our products in China. That’s one of the strength of our portfolio, it is always very dynamic and based on the exchange that we have with our users and distributors.

 

Our biostimulant range is based on the analysis we did of the market in China and on our international experience, this unique range is working very well and as already produced astonishing results in the showcase that we have realized so far.

 

 

Our sales model is unique. Our Technical Sales Developers (TSD) not only work with local distributors to sell products: more importantly, they bring solutions thanks to the values and benefits of our products to shops in their area.

 

Timab Beijing benefits from the unique business model of the Roullier Group, organized around three pillars, explained before:

 

1. Technical task force and daily relationships

 

2. R&D Unique Facility –30 Million € investment for a unique facility in Europe.

 

3. Industrial heritage

 

This innovative business model developed by Mr Daniel Roullier, is the trademark of the Roullier Group for more than sixty years. It has been implemented successfully in more than 46 countries, which has enable to generate as many profitable exercises as years of existence. One of the most difficult part of this model is related to the identification and training of local talents who will be in contact with our partners. We do not believe in a development without very strong local roots. The development of the accurate solutions requires, not only to collect technical and agronomic datas but as well the local habits and beliefs (tools, mindset…) in order to design the most innovative solution according to the local habits. Then, a solution defined for a grape in Sichuan might be different for a grape in Shandong. 

 

Today, the targeted applications through the set up of our model are the vegetables and fruits farms. Indeed these farms have higher financial capacity than those working on cereals. We are not considering state owned farms in the north of china as they are working on a different model. We consider Fruits and vegetables because they enable, as well, to have faster results, as the crops cycle are shorter. 

 

Furthermore, in order to use each aspects of our model, we are looking for crops that have yield issues. Therefore, banana and citrus have issues that we are already studying through other countries (US, Brésil).

 

 

Our mission is to help farmers improve their production, in pursuit of sustainable and more profitable agriculture. To achieve this, we base our actions on a people-focused approach and on innovative aspects of our industry, with our Group offering outstanding advice to shops, via our sales team.

 

The support of the farmers can only be done with strong partnership with distributors and village retailers, they are key partners in our model, and always integrated in our development, whatever the country is. Therefore, we are designing additional tools to develop cooperation between our company and the distribution

 

 

Our plan for the next years is to put in place our technical network and permanently bring new technology, even if we have more than 100 technical people on the field so far, this is not enough yet to deliver all the support that we want to put in place, but thanks to the implication of all the Groupe Roullier team members we are on the right way to achieve this. 

 

The professionalism, commitment and dedication of our employees makes me confident for the development our business over the next years.