AGORES is a professional association created in 1986, which brings together more than 1,500 managers and elected officials in charge of the collective catering of local authorities (county, department, region), public institutions of intercommunal cooperation and education offices including overseas territories and departments.
Territorial catering represents 1/3 of collective catering in France, or 1 billion meals. With its 1,500 member communities, AGORES totals 40% of this territorial catering, i.e. 1/7th of collective catering. Christophe HEBERT has been its president since 2002.
The association has a dual purpose. The first purpose involves promoting places of exchange so as to create mutual knowledge, to develop skills, and to mobilize energies. The actions of AGORES, carried out daily by its members, also aim to promote public territorial catering at the highest level by relying on high quality services that are modern, adaptive and accessible to all.
The values upheld by AGORES are professionalism, the overall quality of service delivery, team-spirit, and avant-gardism.
Professionalism
Engaged in the field of public catering issues, AGORES is today a well-known and recognized actor who has a place in all major debates related to collective catering. The participation of the members of the Board of Directors in the numerous working groups, particularly of the CNA (National Food Council) or of the National Council for Collective Catering (NRC), illustrates AGORES’ collective commitments. The association is thus recognized as an indispensable institutional interlocutor of the sovereign committees, alongside the institutions: Departmental Directorate for the Protection of Populations (DDPP), General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Prevention of Fraud (DGCCRF), Directorate for Food (DGAL), Ministries, and its partners: National Centre for Public Service Region (CNFPT), Chambers of Agriculture.
Quality
The AGORES National Quality Charter, created in 1998 and reworked in 2018 in the light of the new challenges of collective catering, with the partners “Un plus bio” and “Ecocert”, is a mark of recognition attributed to communities committed to provide quality.
Precursor of a high-quality local supply since 1993, “La Mélodie des Mets Locaux” has been setting up an AGORES day for 7 years to present local producers and seasonal products.
The workshops and schools of taste developed by the network make it possible to give meaning to each territory and its culinary heritage.
Team-spirit
The annual forum, under the patronage of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry (MAAF), welcomes more than 350 delegates and 70 exhibitors. It tackles the topical issues of collective catering with the help of very high-level speakers. The regional meetings (18 per year since 1993), signs of a dense territorial network, brings together professionals towards debates and action plans that are meaningful and turned towards all of our futures.
Avant-gardism
The legal and business watches allow the network to be aware of the daily news regarding collective catering and to adapt to it as best as possible.
At the heart of the EGALIM law, AGORES wants to become the point of reference on the issues of local and organic supply, official quality certifications, reduction of food waste and sustainable development.
Finally, the long-awaited publication of the white paper on alternatives to plastics in catering shows AGORES’ willingness to be at the forefront of thinking about topical issues and to raise the game of its members with its avant-garde policy.
