Interview of Philippe Juglar, founder of ABCD

Philippe Juglar, in 2003, you created ABCD with Jean-Emmanuel Jourde, why?

In 2003, my exciting experience with Colombian Coffee had come to an end. I had experienced how to convert a commodity into a brand named product; I had discovered the possibilities of a collective valorization, its stakes, its possibilities, its presuppositions, often ignored even by the biggest organizations. Jean-Emmanuel, on his way, had gathered a long trading experience. It seemed to me that joining our two experiences was a nice opportunity.

And what is your expertise?

I spent most of my career on international projects. My immersion in so different countries such as Great Britain, Greece, Latin America, and nowadays Middle East, brought me to develop an ability to adapt myself and understand various cultures. This allows me to know how to move from trading rooms’ logic to distribution channels’ one, from agricultural constraints to obligations of marketing universes.

Finally when I look backward, I realize that most of my career was dedicated to agricultural producers: supporting them to leave the commodity logic, which is submitted to markets exchange moves, for a valued product one, thanks to the recognition of its nobility, signed and recognized through a brand or a denomination of origin.

Is this what you propose in ABCD?

Yes precisely: ABCD aims to serve the producers’ interest in order to help them increase the added value of their production. Whatever the product is: coffee, edible oils, fruits or any other agricultural produce, the producers’ question remains the same: what shall I do to differentiate my production, how to bring it out from the constraining cycles of commodities?

Therefore, we step in with the producers to make them discover and understand worlds which have values, codes and behaviours very far from theirs. In fact it is not enough to produce well, it is also necessary to make it known and recognized. We go with the producers in their various steps to differentiate and communicate in order to adjust their products to their target market.

Could we say about ABCD, that they are valorization consultants …?

Not only! Our very concrete experience as traders on technical markets like commodity futures market remains very present. And there I think of my friend and partner, Jean-Emmanuel Jourde, who has an experience of trading various agricultural commodities. For us, consultants also need to take their part of the job: you cannot only say “do as follows”, but also do it. So, if everything goes well, ABCD does not hesitate to do it and this is one of our originalities! And this goes from consulting to organize producers’ associations to logistic analysis, or to appropriate distribution channels search, even to direct support for commercial action.

And for all that, you are only two people?

Of course not! We did our best to gather a competent, multicultural and pluridisciplinary team of consultants in order to be able to set the appropriate working groups to attend to our clients’ problems. To answer a tea question in Lebanon, we hired one of the best French experts of that product. It is in Morocco that we found our specialist of HACCP certification to support an industrial project in the Middle East. It is in Chile that we have our “honey expertise”…