You will find him in the office early every morning, eyes fixed on the auction clock screen. Pierre-Yves Queguineur is our auction buyer. With the company since June 2003, Pierre-Yves is the link between the office and the field, from purchasing at the auction to loading pallets of fresh vegetables. A self-described “grumbler”, he is also a reliable and meticulous colleague. Here is his profile.
Buying at the auction: securing the supply of fresh vegetables
At Pouliquen, the day starts with a team briefing. The sales team reports what its customers need, product by product. “We go over everyone’s needs in the morning. It’s a team effort.”
From around 8 to 10 am, the lots scroll across the auction clock screen and decisions have to be made fast.
This production cycle mainly involves fresh vegetables: cauliflower, broccoli, artichokes, romanesco, tomatoes… depending on the season.
After the auction, the field: checking, preparing, loading
Once the auction is over, he heads for the packing stations, where he checks the goods purchased, prepares the orders and helps load the trucks that will deliver to our customers across Europe, supported by Norbert’s collection work, which we introduced here.
Pierre-Yves knows the packing stations inside out: seven in all, spread across Finistère (29) around Pouliquen’s head office and as far as Saint-Malo, in Ille-et-Vilaine (35). The trips are not daily, but they are frequent. And he does not mind them, quite the opposite: “I’m no desk man. Once the auction is over, I’m out preparing orders. Driving doesn’t bother me, and out there I get to work with the guys.”
It is this dual perspective, the auction in the morning and the field for the rest of the day, that makes his role so valuable. At Pouliquen, the buyer who saw the lot on screen is also the one who checks it at the station and loads it onto the truck. For our customers, that means a pallet of fresh vegetables that matches what was ordered.
A logistics background before vegetables
The son of Breton market gardeners, Pierre-Yves has known the crops since childhood. “I know the products, I know the system.” But he never wanted to take over a farm: at the time, the job seemed too hard for what it paid. So he chose logistics, earning a vocational baccalaureate in transport and logistics in 1996.
A variety of jobs followed: order preparer in the food industry and fresh vegetables, freight agent at Brest airport and then Biarritz, order preparer in pharmaceutical distribution in Quimper…
His return to the vegetable trade was more a matter of opportunity than career planning. During those early jobs, he had worked in the field with Gérard and Joël at another trading company. When Pouliquen was looking for an auction buyer in 2003, the contact was already there. Twenty-three years later, he is still here. “If you don’t move on, it’s because you like it. No need to look any further.”
Self-confessed grumbler, valued team-mate
Pierre-Yves doesn’t hide behind a persona. “I often grumble. I’m aware of that, and so are they.” His colleagues confirm this, with a smile. He’s the grumbler of the team – everyone knows it – and nobody takes offence, because his other qualities more than make up for it: his reliability, his diligence, his availability, and his sound knowledge of the field.
What does he appreciate about Pouliquen? Autonomy first: after the auction, he organises his own day. Then the working relationships, with David in logistics, Stéphanie and Emmanuelle in sales, Norbert in order preparation, as well as the rest of the Pouliquen team and the station teams, some of whom he has worked alongside for twenty years. “That matters, otherwise you don’t last. Even if it gets tense at times, that’s how a team works.”
Reliable at the auction, present at the stations, straight-talking with the team: Pierre-Yves is one of those who keep Pouliquen running without making a fuss, or almost. If you talk to our sales team every morning, you now know that behind the lots on offer, there is often his eye. And a little of his grumbling.
Find out more
What is an auction buyer?
Every morning, an auction buyer purchases, at the auction clock’s descending-price sale, the lots of fresh vegetables that match customers’ needs. At Pouliquen, he then checks the goods at the packing station and supervises pallet preparation.
How does Pouliquen buy its fresh vegetables?
Fresh vegetables (cauliflower, artichokes, broccoli…) are bought at the auction, from around 8 to 10 am, by two buyers, based on the needs reported by the sales team. Shallots and onions follow a separate channel.
What is a mixed pallet of fresh vegetables?
A pallet made up of several product lines (for example cauliflower, broccoli and artichokes), assembled to order for a customer from the packages collected at partner packing stations.