Les Petits Producteurs

About Les Petits Producteurs

Les Petits Producteurs is a social cooperative of local and/or organic food shops based in the Liège area. Created by producers and citizens, it operates neighborhood stores that aim to make healthy food accessible while respecting the environment and the people who produce it.

The cooperative serves everyday shoppers looking for fresh, local, and often organic products, while also supporting small producers through short supply chains and fair pricing. It positions itself as an alternative to conventional retail by combining proximity, transparency, and a cooperative model focused on social usefulness rather than profit maximization.

Core Values

• Local and short supply chains: The cooperative prioritizes products sourced directly from nearby producers and works to keep supply chains short and transparent.
• Fair remuneration: It emphasizes a fair, transparent price set by the producer, with the goal of paying producers properly while remaining affordable for customers.
• Environmental responsibility: The cooperative promotes food produced without synthetic chemicals, with a strong preference for organic and environmentally respectful farming.
• Solidarity and social usefulness: It is built around mutual support between producers, customers, and workers, and reinvests value into the cooperative project rather than maximizing shareholder returns.
• Transparency: Les Petits Producteurs highlights openness about product origins, ingredients, purchase prices, and the breakdown of selling prices.

Unique Aspects

• Social cooperative structure: Founded in 2017 by citizens and producers, the company operates as an économie sociale cooperative, with collective decision-making and limited or no dividend distribution.
• Multi-store neighborhood network: It runs several local food shops in Liège and nearby areas, including Neuvice, Sainte-Walburge, and Vennes, with a former store in Visé that later closed.
• CREaFARM urban agriculture project: The cooperative was selected for Liège’s CREaFARM program and supported the installation of two independent market gardeners on communal land in Sainte-Walburge/Vottem.
• Producer-in-store hybrid jobs: Through its urban agriculture project, some producers combine farming with part-time work as store staff, helping stabilize income across seasons.
• Citizen shareholding and resale mechanism: The cooperative has used public savings campaigns to finance projects, and it currently offers a share resale board rather than issuing new shares.
• Bio certification: The cooperative states that it is certified organic by Certysis.