YOUNAU, a taste of the Cévennes

LET'S HAVE A BITE!

Hello Aurélie, Marie,

Welcome to the Terroir section of the UzEssentiel.com blog,
How did your YOUNAU brand come about?

Marie, a former colleague of mine, and I (1) founded YOUNAU in October 2023.

As we both came from the agri-food sector, we were very familiar with the ins and outs of agricultural products, whether packaged or not.

Our idea was simple: to make the most of the local produce, prioritising vegetables ‘from the sorting and surplus production’. Although this source is highly unpredictable, it's also a source of creation for us, and always holds some wonderful surprises in store when it comes to recipes.

What makes up your team?

Apart from the two of us at Saint-Privat-des-Vieux, we have a production site, an ESAT (Etablissement et Service d'Aide par le Travail, Help through Work Establishment and Service) located in the Cévennes, a collaboration that is dear to us and which is the very essence of YOUNAU, ‘embodying gastronomic excellence, sustainability, inclusion and transparency’.

Gastronomic excellence, sustainability, inclusion... Tell us more about this last value at YOUNAU?

When YOUNAU was created, we wanted social inclusion to be an integral part of our company, although we didn't really know how to integrate it at the outset.

It was when we chose our partner production workshop that the solution became obvious. Among the potential partners, one was an ESAT and had all the equipment we needed to make our spreads, as well as a number of disabled residents who were fully capable of helping us with the most labour-intensive tasks, namely washing, peeling and cutting the vegetables, as well as filling the jars.

So we chose to work in this production workshop, and we're delighted we did. The ESAT residents are also happy with the variety of tasks we offer them through the production of spreads, which gives them a bit of a change from their other daily tasks.

Your spreads all have really nice names, like Retrouvailles entre copains, Dimanche en famille or Balade en Cévennes (2)..... What was your very first recipe?

The very first recipe we created was Douceur au coin du feu, a subtle blend of pumpkin, sweet potato, Cévennes sweet onion and Christmas spices.

We created this product when YOUNAU started up last October, following a meeting with a local producer who had out-of-sizes pumpkins that were too small because of the drought. We tried combining the pumpkin with other vegetables available locally at the same time of year, and that's how we came up with this recipe, which made us want to have a cosy aperitif by the fireplace. Hence the name...

For each of our creations, we choose names that take us back to a moment in our lives, or to a region that is dear to us.

What is the creative process that leads you to the final result? Research into the local products (in the Gard, Lozère, Cévennes and elsewhere), the best combinations, a panel of testers...

The process always starts with the market producers. We spent a good part of last year meeting local vegetable growers and re-selecting the various vegetables they produce, taking care to prioritise in our recipes the vegetables that most often pose sorting and/or surplus problems.

We also take great care to ensure that the growers we select use environmentally-friendly methods of cultivation.

We then do a lot of recipe testing, combining several vegetables from the same season, sometimes with fruit, sometimes with cheese (as will be the case in the next recipe that we'll be launching at the end of June), sometimes with nuts, etc. We then taste the recipes together.

We then taste the recipes together, Marie and I, and make a first selection of our favourites, then put them to several panels of testers in our circle and keep only those that receive the most votes.

6 recipes are currently available. What will be the next to join your range?

As soon as the summer vegetables become available in the second half of June, we'll be producing three new summer recipes.

The first is a spread based on courgette, aubergine, tomato and onion - in short, the vegetables that usually make up ratatouille - combined with pélardon (a goat's cheese from the Cévennes) with a touch of honey. This new summer recipe is called... Grilling with friends.

Carte blanche à présent.... What would you like to add?

YOUNAU = you know... In the interests of transparency, each of our recipes bears a QR code on the capsule, which links to a short video that takes you behind the scenes of how it's made.

Information on the raw materials used to make the spread, interviews with the market gardeners who supply the vegetables, recipe ideas, interviews with the residents of the ESAT with whom we work, and so on. The videos are constantly updated. The idea is that as well as enjoying an original gourmet recipe, the consumer learns something about it.

Now, YOUNAU what you eat!

Many thanks to Aurélie and Marie for their collaboration on this article and the visuals sent ( -1 Aurélie Evesque et Marie Ponsoye and other spreads©YOUNAU, -2 @Saloméwithacamera)   
 

The right address: YOUNAU, Point of sale : Caveau de Saint Alban, chemin de la Chapelle, 30340 Saint-Privat-des-Vieux.

Contact: Tel: 06 12 04 77 61or 07 68 70 71 12, hello@younau.com, Instagram @younau_co.

In Uzès, you can find our spreads at @Les Dandys dodus, 11 rue de la Pélisserie.