« We were informed the day before. All the stores called us gradually to notify us,” explains Valérie Bolze, president of the Food Bank of Bordeaux and Gironde. The national food bank collection begins this Friday, November 22, until Sunday, November 24, but several Gironde stores are missing. The cause is the angry movement of farmers and the blocking, on Tuesday, November 19, of access to the E.Leclerc purchasing center, in Beychac-et-Caillau, by around thirty members of the Gironde Rural Coordination.
Due to supply difficulties, several stores have indicated that they will not participate in the operation: out of 22 E.Leclerc partners, only two – La Teste-de-Buch and Biscarrosse (Landes) – will take part. “They must also be afraid of excesses,” suggests Valérie Bolze, who specifies that a postponement of the operation was offered to them. The brand, contacted several times by “Sud Ouest”, did not respond to our requests.
The Beychac-et-Caillau purchasing center was blocked by members of the Gironde Rural Coordination on November 19, to denounce the prices at which Leclerc buys their products from them.
Guillaume Bonnaud / SO
Moment difficile
As for the potential organization of a future collection, at a more opportune time for E.Leclerc, nothing can yet be confirmed by the association. “We cannot commit to a postponement. A collection is work over several months,” regrets the president of the Food Bank. Last year in Gironde, the collection made it possible to collect 390 tonnes of goods, representing almost 10% of annual needs. This year, the two participating stores should bring in between 5 and 10 tonnes, compared to 80 last year for the 22 E.Leclerc stores. “It’s a huge shortfall,” underlines Valérie Bolze.
The Bordeaux and Gironde Food Bank launched an appeal at the beginning of November to recruit “between 500 and 600” additional volunteers in the run-up to the event. But the situation has evolved since the withdrawal of E.Leclerc stores, with more than 500 volunteers urgently canceling. “We had to call them one by one,” breathes a member of the association. “This is an unprecedented situation. This has never happened before,” said the president.
Despite these difficulties, she remains hopeful: “We hope that the public will be there. » Valérie Bolze remembers the Food Bank's best collection which took place during the Covid pandemic. “It is often in difficult times that solidarity is most evident. »
