How automatic lockers transform rural trade into France

Like the poppies in the spring, they swarm in the squares of the villages, near town halls, in the middle of the parking lots or in the shade of the washing stations. Most often rectangular, automatic lockers have rooted in the rural landscape, like the phone cabins in the past. Accessible by touch screen and fitted with a collection terminal, they allow you to buy, in self-service and without intermediaries, vegetables, milk, bread, flowers, or to remove and place packages …

These food instructions would be 100,000 across the country, according to several estimates (1). The manufacturers of lockers, on the other hand, multiply and see their turnover fly away, like the French locker, one of the driving players in the sector, whose result has been multiplied by five during the last four years.

“When you live in the countryside, it’s hyper-practical!” Lucas, 26, built his house in Beaumont-le-Hareng, a town in Seine-Maritime in the heart of large agricultural plains. The young man works on highways, often in offbeat times, which brings him home in the middle of the night. “Thanks to these distributors, I can buy a chicken, a bag of potatoes at any time. It’s a bit like a neighborhood supermarket, but in rural areas … “

An enthusiasm shared by Rodolphe, crossed that day before the automated instruction, also called locker (chest or locker, in English). RC Lens jersey on his shoulders – “his Sunday outfit”, as he says -rodolphe came to receive “Madame’s package”. He also does not dry up for these automated “simple, easy to access, fast, and above all essential” boxes.

A few kilometers away, in the village of Bertrimont, the inhabitants crowd behind a baguette distributor. “On Sunday, that does not stop,” smiles the baker Cédric Patin, crossed in full replenishment – an operation which he repeats up to five times on mass days. With each passage, he discusses, listens to the elders, and even notes future cake commands, while aligning the breads on the shelving. “I go there two to three times a day, we see people, it creates a link,” slides Marie-Christine (2), the sixty sports, who approaches the automaton after having put his bike on the crutch.

In the absence of shops

Until the installation of an automatic distributor in 2020, this village of 218 inhabitants had no trade, like 62 % of French municipalities today -they were only 25 % in this case in 19803. “Inevitably, the inhabitants are very attached to their bread distributor, it is a bit like the yellow box of the postman in the past,” explains Cédric Patin, the pants smeared with flour. The craftsman has already installed four other machines in the surroundings, still according to the same scheme … It was the mayors of small municipalities that have requested it with a simple message: “We have no trade, come and install a local service, we take care of electricity. Is this vogue from the automatic distributor a solution to the desertification of the campaigns?

For Nicolas Lebrun, geographer, specialist in rural trade,, In any case, it provides a “direct response” to the “commercial depends” of the 2000s. At the time, the rise of the Internet and the generalization of home-work journeys fueled the theory that proximity stalls were no longer necessary. In this context, grocery stores, butchers, pizzerias of towns and villages have suffered, and the multiplication of automated outlets appeared as a means of maintaining an activity. First isolated, these initiatives were densified, often related to local productions: oysters in Brittany, cheeses in Normandy, Gironde wines.

Self-service has imposed itself as evidence

Jean-Baptiste Lecarpentier was one of the first French farmers to design his own distributor himself to sell the products of his farm. Electrotechnician by training, he returned ten years ago alongside his brothers on the family farm, where fields of linen, beets and especially potatoes -the specialty of the house extend. But with the siblings dispersed in the four corners of the plots, it is impossible to hold a shop on site: too many constraints, too much paperwork. Self-service has established itself as obvious. “It was the best way to recreate a direct link between the producer and the consumer,” explains the operator, who never stops his smile. A concrete means, according to him, to “consume local”.

His first “potato box” was installed five kilometers from the farm, at the entrance to Saint-Jouin-Bruneval, on the Côte d’Albâtre. The size of a container, it distributes five kilos sachets and represents 5 % of its overall turnover. A way of “diversifying your income”. An employee, specifically hired for this task, replenish the machine every two to three days. “Thanks to an application, we are alerted as soon as the stock is low,” he said, showing the screen of his smartphone.

Brands competition

But if these boxes have saved certain businesses, they now compete with others … like that of Julia Martin-Demesy, owner of the Le Corneille bar, in Barentin. For several years, the owner at the Verb Haut has made its establishment a parcel relay where you stop to read the newspaper or drink an espresso. A few weeks ago, one of the leaders in the sector, Mondial Relay, installed a locker Automated a few meters away. The French distribution brand has just changed strategy by favoring lockers outside the establishments. Result: fewer passages in Le Corneille coffee. “I was between 50 and 150 packages per week. Today, I fell between 25 and 50, estimates its manager. People no longer stop. The city center is dead. Now that people are used to vegetable or pizza machines, we should not be replaced by a battalion of dematerialized terminals … “

Not far from there, the town of Caudebec-lès-Elbeuf has seen “pushing” in recent years lockers . “This is a real threat to rural trade,” alerts the mayor, Laurent Bonnaterre (horizons). Since the announcement of Mondial Relay, he has received a procession of worried merchants in his office. “The councilors have no take: when the installation is done on a private plot, such as a parking lot, the building permit or development is not requested. Obviously, the consequences of the phenomenon are not the same if we speak of foodstuffs or other types of products. With, in the center, the key question of the service provided to the consumer.

(1) The Gira Foodservice Institute of Studies counted 80,000 in 2022.

(2) The first name has been changed.

(3) Economy.gouv.fr “Commerce: a program to reconquer in rural areas” (INSEE figures).