Content reserved for subscribers
The Payerne region’s school association invokes the law on public procurement to justify its choice to award a Geneva company the supply of meals to five reception units for schoolchildren.
More than 200 meals will eventually be delivered to schoolchildren hosted in Asipe units. © Charles Ellena-photo pretext.
Published on 06/14/2024
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
The Kidelis SA company, based in Grand-Lancy (GE), recently won a contract put out to competition by the Intercommunal School Association of Payerne and surrounding areas (Asipe). From the start of the school year, it will provide up to 256 meals per day prepared at its production site in Ecublens (VD) and delivered to the five reception units for schoolchildren (UAPEs) located in Payerne, Corcelles-près-Payerne, Grandcour and Granges.
An announcement made during the last assembly of Asipe and accompanied by a press release which caused a reaction. Difficult for some to understand this decision when the service had been gradually entrusted since 2020 to the Payer company Au porc d’or. Also a candidate for the contract, it currently provides 135 daily meals in four of the five sites.
On the association’s side, we highlight the constraints linked to the tender procedure and the guarantees offered by Kidelis. Note that the contract with Kidelis is now signed for five years, the Golden Pig has not appealed against the decision.
A more attractive price
Asipe explains in its press release that it has launched a call for tenders procedure in order to respond to the law on public procurement which requires the renewal of contracts after a period of five years and the open call for a service exceeding an annual amount of 250,000 francs. Nicolas Schmid, president of the association’s management committee and member of the Payerne Executive, notes that Kidelis already provides meals to the Intercommunal School Association of Moudon, Lucens and surrounding areas (AISMLE). The latter, as well as Asipe, are united within the Association of the Day Care Network (ARAJ Broye). The latter notified Asipe that cantonal legislation in Vaud requires that a single rate be billed to parents for meals provided to all of its UAPEs.
“We have drawn up a list of requirements to promote the local aspect”
Nicolas Schmid
Currently, Au porc d’or applies a unit price of 10.40 francs compared to 7.50 francs for Kidelis. However, Max Blaser explains that he proposed a price of 8.90 francs in his file. “Going from 135 to 256 meals allowed me to offer a lower price but this did not appear in the press release. I was very angry at this completely irrelevant comparison.” Questioned on this subject, the president explains that “as specified in the tender documents, this information was confidential since the Golden Pig’s offer was not accepted.”
Member of the intercommunal council of Asipe and the Legislative Council of Corcelles-près-Payerne, François Vessaz had asked for explanations on the choice of Kidelis during the assembly. Contacted, he reiterates his criticism: “For me this argument of the single tariff is nonsense. I think the outcome of a call for tenders is also linked to the way it is written.”
In this document that Asipe provided to Freedom, the price has a weighting of 30% in relation to all the criteria. Nicolas Schmid judges it low, “in the majority of calls for tenders, the price generally represents 50% of the total”.
For François Vessaz, also president of the financial commission of Asipe, “they did not take into account the economic benefits for the region, which I deplore. I often emphasize that costs must be reduced within the association but if an expense is necessary, I prefer to invest a franc in the region than outside the region.
The weight of labels
According to Nicolas Schmid, the origin of the products was a very important aspect in the call for tenders. A criterion forming part of the “technical quality of the offer” of a total of 40%. “We wrote a list of requirements to promote the local aspect. » Among these, must come from Switzerland: eggs, dairy products, meat and even potatoes. The cantons of Vaud and Friborg or French-speaking Switzerland, however, are not mentioned.
The boss of Cochon d’or underlines that “more than 80% of the producers with whom we collaborate are Vaudois or Fribourgeois and we use a majority of Swiss products such as meat bearing the Porc d’ici brand from the cantons of Friborg and Vaud, and our fruits and vegetables are produced in Zealand.
Arguments which, however, were no match for the labels presented by Kidelis. Its director Adil Baudat mentions in particular that “we have the advantage of being EcoCook certified, imposing significant rigor in terms of local purchasing, supply, energy management and ultimately social sustainability”. A certificate created by the Swiss company Biolia based in the canton of Vaud and which scored points with the association: “We have no possibility of checking to ensure that one of the candidates offered more local products than the other, apart from this label. We are obliged, during a call for tenders, to award points in a very factual manner.” It also indicates that “this label requires you to look for producers in a perimeter close to the agent”. Adil Baudat affirms that “we purchase all our products locally and close to our customers as we undertake to do when we bid for a call for tenders”. By going to the EcoCook website, you have access to the operational audit concerning the site in Ecublens de Kidelis. According to this analysis, 46% of the food products used are Swiss.
If the delivery of meals represented a third of the activities of the Cochon d’Or catering sector, its boss is procrastinating. “We recovered from this news, even if it was very hard but that’s the game when you are an entrepreneur. We will move forward, we are confident about the future of our company.”
Geographical proximity: not an advantage
The situation of the company Au porc d’or, in Payerne, therefore very close to the UAPEs concerned by the delivery of meals, could not be taken into account in the call for tenders published by the Intercommunal School Association of Payerne and surroundings (Asipe). A legal constraint appearing in the Intercantonal Agreement on public procurement and more precisely in its articles on equal treatment and non-discrimination.
In the French-speaking guide to public procurementit is explained that “non-discrimination aims to guarantee that certain bidders, or categories of bidders, are not sidelined or excluded from procedures arbitrarily or because of characteristics which should no longer be used in the award of public contracts, such as origin, place of headquarters and provenance.
Thus, the truck from the Geneva company Kidelis to which Asipe has entrusted the mandate for the supply of meals will travel 120 km per day between the production site in Ecublens (VD) and Broye.
