Come on, let's go, hop hop hop! From 6:30 a.m., Hervé Mérand, one of the partners of Ferme des 7 chemins, guides his cows towards the milking parlor. In overalls and heavy boots, this tall, 40-year-old man inspects the teats of the ten or so cows surrounding him and installs the liners. Like every day, its 55 milkmaids come morning and evening to deliver their precious white liquid. The volume certainly remains limited – only 100,000 liters per year – but allows the three partners, Mathieu Hamon, Hervé Mérand and Cédric Briand, as well as their employee, to benefit from reasonable income and five weeks of leave per year. A luxury for farmers when we know that 20% of them live below the poverty line. Their secret? The Bretonne pie noir, a breed of small stocky and horned cows, with black and white coats, dairy and meat, which almost disappeared in the 1970s.
A small milk producer, it found itself neglected after the Second World War, when the dairy industry sought to increase productivity. Its 3,500 liters per year do not compete with the 6,500 liters of breeds like the Holstein. But recently, it has come back into vogue. Very adapted to bocage lands, the herd of 180 cattle (including oxen, calves and heifers) spends almost the entire year on the farm's 80 hectares of meadows. Economical in terms of food, the Breton black pie is also economical in veterinary costs: its size reduces joint pressure problems, and its limited productivity reduces the risk of udder pathologies. The almost zero use of care thus lowers production costs.
Breton fermented milk
The most important asset of Bretonne pie noir remains its high-quality milk, which Cédric Briand works to heat, mold and press in the room adjoining the milking parlor. Essential, this know-how allows the precious liquid to be fully exploited. Fresh cheese, tomme, raclette, fromage blanc, everything is processed and matured on site and has the same starting ingredient as its base: gwell. Flagship product of the Ferme des 7 chemins, this typically Breton fermented milk is both marketed as such and used as a ferment for other varieties of local cheese.
“We call it our gwell ecosystem, because it is by safeguarding microbial and domestic biodiversity with cows that we produce atypical products. The idea is really to keep our production on the farm, to transform it there and to create our added value. Beyond making us live economically, this approach to autonomy allows us to realize ourselves humanly,” explains Cédric, who is very attached to the preservation of the environment and this breed of cow. Reduced to 311 heads in the 1970s, the French herd of Bretonne pie noir has benefited since 1976 from a national protection plan, which has made it possible to increase its population tenfold, and from a specific subsidy from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) paid to breeders up to around a hundred euros per animal.
To preserve their margins, the three partners chose the short and local circuit. They sell their products to restaurateurs, organic stores, creameries in the region and market a large part of them in their farm store. A risky bet since the latter only opens on Friday afternoons, but the model has proven itself. Every week, 70 to 120 people go there to buy local produce: dairy products from the farm, but also organic fruits and vegetables from market gardeners installed on a plot of the farm since 2021, as well as food. from neighboring farms.
A loyal customer base
But more than the diversity of the products, it is the “ideology, the quality, the organic side and the sympathy” that have kept Caroline and Patrick coming back tirelessly since the opening in 2005. Cédric observes this loyalty over time. years: “There are teenagers who accompanied their parents and who push back the door today, once they become adults, to find the gwell. » “Unconditional fans regularly ask us for this dairy product typical of Brittany,” confirms Mattéo Lecoq, from the Les Carmêlites creamery in Nantes. While in France the number of dairy farmers has decreased by a quarter in ten years, the Bretonne pie noir is giving new impetus to the profession in Brittany and the Pays de la Loire.
