Visit of Kerex - Terre Exotique to Confirel Discovery-Kep

Victor Lafourcade, purchasing director of Kerex - Terre Exotique, came to Cambodia in February to visit Kampot pepper plantations and meet with growers. Terre Exotique, based in Rochecorbon and Notre-Dame-d'Oé, Indre-et-Loire, France, has become a major reference in the field of fine foods, offering a wide range of peppers, spices, and condiments worldwide46. Confirel has been a partner since 2007, the year of the first delivery of 200 kilos of Kampot pepper. During his visit to the Kep plantation, Victor Lafourcade spoke with Dr. Hay Ly Eang about his commitment to circular development.

VL: How did the concept of circular development become important to you?

HLE: Lee Kuan Yew had said about Cambodia: "You have everything at home: water, fruit trees, rich soil. Fish alone would be enough to feed everyone in Southeast Asia, thanks to your fish granary, the Tonle Sap." Nature has given us this chance. And yet there was civil war in Cambodia. Because there were very rich people, but also people who could find nothing to eat in a country where everything was available. It's a distribution problem. This is related to our production system. The poor cannot transform products because it's the city people who have the means to invest in processing. This is where the concept of circular development is important. It's a bit like the concept of self-sufficiency: producing the minimum for survival.

VL: So we're far from just an organic pepper plantation here?

HLE: Yes, this is not just a plantation, but also a school of experience, an experience of nature. It takes time. We started at the end of 2011, and it's almost finished. Here, you have everything: history because it's important to know where we've been and why, you have nature, plants, and naturally domestic animals.

For example, we see wild boars living on products that have no market outlets, water spinach, trees that wild boars eat. There are many protein-rich plants, but we know too little about them. No one can imagine that we can use water hyacinth, abundant in stagnant water bodies, to feed animals like chickens. Plants can be used to raise crickets, which are a source of protein.

All of this is part of the circular and sustainable development ecosystem. Here, you can live self-sufficiently: rice, chicken, fish, ingredients, everything comes from here. This concept can be applied in the countryside, but also in cities, in terms of waste recycling. It's not anti-consumption, but reasonable consumption.

 VL: This plantation is a kind of model for economic development...

HLE: Absolutely... For pepper, we harvest pepper three times a year. We harvest organic pepper, but also pepper used to make marinated pepper. And two months before, it's the harvest of pepper for pepper sauce. With pepper, with other ingredients like prahok, tamarind, etc., with all these products that come from the countryside, we implement a circular development system that leads to the valorization of other sectors. For example, vertically, you have pepper at 7 months, pepper at 9-10 months, and mature pepper. Horizontally, you have other developments like sauce, marinated pepper, pepper inflorescence, which is used to make our health infusion Kirum, the first product from Cambodia to be protected by an international patent. Circular development can also be developed in other areas, which mainly allows us not to burden the planet with waste.