Les retoqués

Les Retoqués is a nonprofit association based in the Strasbourg Eurométropole area, founded five years ago out of a citizen-led territorial development dynamic called Startup de Territoire. The association employs three staff members totalling 2.5 full-time equivalents — a coordinator, a production and outreach worker, and an outreach worker — supported by a collegiate board of six administrators and approximately twenty active volunteers. Its legal structure as an employing association was a deliberate choice, with several founding members subsequently transitioning into salaried roles. The association was inspired by a canning cooperative in Metz, from which early members received hands-on training in food preservation and hygiene, including HACCP compliance.

The association operates two core activities. The first is a small-scale canning operation: it collects unsold or visually substandard fruit and vegetables from local, mostly organic-oriented market gardeners, as well as fruit from abandoned orchards gathered through a gleaning partnership, and transforms them into jam using volunteer labour under salaried supervision. Around eight production sessions take place per year, each yielding approximately 500 jars. These are sold through short supply chains, including an alternative market and direct sales to members. The canning activity runs at a financial loss by collective choice, as production costs consistently exceed sale prices.

The second activity is food-waste awareness and behaviour-change work, delivered across a range of formats: anti-waste cooking workshops, preservation and lacto-fermentation sessions, stands, talks, and structured training for organisations such as restaurants. Workshops are run regularly at two social and cultural centres in a priority neighbourhood, and a recurring partnership with the main student federation funds shared cooking sessions for students, co-facilitated with a nutritionist. The association also delivers workshops for an urban agriculture organisation and prospecting corporate clients for team-building and corporate social responsibility commissions.

Funding comes primarily from public grants — including a recently secured operating subsidy from the Eurométropole — alongside project-based calls for funding, employment support contracts, service fees, jam sales, membership dues, and a one-off civic crowdfunding campaign run in 2022. The association shares office space and a communications officer with two partner associations working on sustainable food and soft mobility. It is embedded in a dense local network that includes territorial development incubators, an environmental education federation, the social and solidarity economy cluster, and the city's waste reduction services, which regularly commission the association to address food-waste issues the municipal administration lacks the staff to handle directly.