This is an aspect of the Bernard Hayot Group (GBH) hitherto little perceived in its full extent that Michel Lapeyre, its general director Africa–Middle East–Maghreb–Indian Ocean, highlights in the interview he gave us. All companies today are, somehow, “put on notice” to explain what they accomplish in terms of employment, societal progress, preservation of the environment, local development, sustainable development in general. By engaging in this exercise, Michel Lapeyre takes up point by point all of GBH's commitments in this area, delivering along the way several new pieces of information and, Above all, a global vision of the impact on this plan, for the Reunion area, by GBH, employer of nearly 5,000 employees in Reunion.
Meeting Leader : The last job fair, of training and entrepreneurship took place on October 27 and 28 in Saint-Denis. GBH has been a partner of this show for five years. What are the reasons for this persistent support? ?
Michel Lapeyre : GBH is a major player in employment in overseas departments and regions. In the Indian Ocean in particular where, by our presence on the Reunion Island territory for thirty-five years, we reaffirm our commitment to the promotion and development of local employment. As part of the development of our activities, we had in October, at the time of the show, 122 positions to be filled within the various subsidiaries of the GBH group in Reunion. Our presence and support at this show are part of a long-term partnership logic., because it allows people actively looking for work to meet numerous companies in one place that offer candidates a variety of opportunities. I would like to once again salute the organizers of this show and its various partners., including Cinor and the city of Saint-Denis in particular. In the actual context, with an unemployment rate around 19%, 156,000 job seekers, and above all more than 40,000 young people aged 15 to 29 who are neither employed, nor in study, you a formation, it is essential that all stakeholders mobilize around employment issues, training and integration. GBH, as a responsible and committed actor, will continue to support these initiatives to help develop Reunion Island economically and socially.
What is your assessment of your participation in the 2022 show? ?
We were very satisfied to participate in this new edition. All the companies present have mobilized strongly to offer numerous job offers. This shows the strong dynamic of Reunion entrepreneurs and sends a very positive signal to our youth and to all those actively seeking employment.. Regarding GBH, our subsidiaries welcomed more than 220 candidates. We were able to note the quality of the CVs received. We will now complete the analysis and the recruitment process in order to achieve as many hires as possible and thus strengthen our Reunion teams..
What employment opportunities are offered by the group in Reunion Island? ?
We offer employment opportunities in the distribution sectors, of automobile, catering or even industry through our Sorélait Danone yogurt production plant located in the Port. The positions to be filled are very varied : For example, for distribution, department heads, sellers, saleswomen, management controllers, an assistant hypermarket manager, or even human resources managers. For the automobile, we are looking for bodybuilders, experienced automotive technicians, industrial vehicle mechanics, workshop leaders, sales managers. And in the IT professions, we need support technicians, decision-making project managers, IT managers. You see, the list is vast and not exhaustive. It should also be noted that the establishment and development of the GBH group internationally, particularly in the Indian Ocean, opens up numerous career prospects in the area, in Madagascar, in Mauritius and Mayotte. I remind you that in addition to the 122 positions to be filled at the show this year, We have, since 2021, recruited 240 employees on permanent contracts in Reunion, and we welcomed nearly 300 apprentices in order to integrate young people and prepare for their entry into professional life. These figures show the dynamism of the GBH group in terms of job creation in general and the integration of young people into our companies in particular..
How do you explain the difficulties in recruiting which seem to affect all sectors of activity? ?
There are real recruitment difficulties, accentuated on certain so-called “shortage” jobs”, such as the catering professions, automotive after-sales, or digital professions. These difficulties may be linked to general tension on the job market, a lack of profiles adapted to certain specific skills, the inadequacy of the demand for certain training courses, or even the lack of attractiveness of certain professions. I take the example of distribution, on which we encounter some difficulties in recruiting certain positions. However, they offer real opportunities and very good career prospects.. There is a lack of knowledge among young people about professions and possible career developments.
What is GBH’s response to this situation??
To anticipate and overcome these difficulties, we work very early with the schools, in order to raise students’ awareness of different career paths and opportunities.
I would like to mention our partnership for twelve years with the business management school of Reunion Island., which allowed us to welcome more than 110 interns, and recruit nearly 40 students. Or our partnership with the Institute of Business Administration, who with a lot of responsiveness, allowed us to set up the professional license “Distrisup” in 2021, which trains future distribution managers. A first in Reunion. Always very early, we have also been working with the Lycée de Bellepierre for more than eighteen years through an innovative partnership, This partnership helps to strengthen the results of our young people in the entrance exams for major business schools in mainland France.. More than 700 young people from Reunion have benefited from this support program! Finally for a public further from employment, we signed an agreement with the second chance school in Reunion as part of our solidarity program “Springboard for employment” which acknowledges GBH’s commitment to the professional integration of young people.
This partnership sets up a training course which will enable 15 young people each year to obtain a baccalaureate-level diploma and a permanent job in our major retail brands., once all training steps have been validated. This device, which will be launched in early 2023, is very concrete and adapted to help young people who are in difficulty in their school career.
This answer therefore goes beyond your own needs
All these actions are the result of the strong culture of the GBH group centered on “the desire to undertake” and which results in a permanent mobilization of our teams within companies to support and help our young people in their job search, then in their integration into our subsidiaries. I would like to salute the involvement of the GBH group employees on these subjects.
I would also like to emphasize that mobilization is general in Reunion on these issues of employability, integration and especially the training of young people. We must salute the significant effort of the State in the field of learning, the revitalization of training by the Réunion region which has just reinvested massively, via the PACTE convention, more than 110 million euros over two years in training!
Finally, as a member of Medef, GBH can attest to the very strong involvement of its professional union in bringing together the business world and the education and training sector.. President Didier Fauchard and all the members of the Écale Entreprise commission do remarkable work serving Reunion youth.
How are the group's local brands doing in the current context??
The year 2022 is a much more complex year than we had imagined. The international context, with the end of the health crisis, disruptions in supply circuits, high inflation, political tensions linked to the war in Ukraine,
causes great economic difficulties worldwide. Reunion is not spared and, on certain points such as maritime freight for example, the impacts are
even more important to us.
Nevertheless, we noted that our department has a strong capacity for adaptation and businesses supported by government measures, through the mobilization of the Region and the Department, were able to resist and find solutions.
The Meeting was innovative, for example through the establishment, long before the metropolis, of the BQP thus making it possible to limit the inflationary effects. For the various subsidiaries of our group, we therefore had to face very serious supply problems and significant inflation on most products.
Carrefour implemented an anti-inflation plan very early on. The mobilization of teams makes it possible to overcome these difficulties and the year 2022 should end successfully.
Where are you in modernizing your stores? ?
We continued our efforts to improve the quality of service for our customers and invested massively in improving our points of sale..
Of course, we are continuing the complete overhaul of the ex-Jumbo Score stores in Carrefour and Carrefour Market. We also carried out a total renovation of our Grand Nord shopping mall at the Carrefour de Sainte-Clotilde. This investment brings comfort and a high-quality customer experience. Finally, the new Decathlon store created in the heart of the Primat district in Saint-Denis has made it possible to provide a complete and competitive offer to Dionysian consumers in a real estate complex that is open and welcoming to families.. And at Mr.Bricolage, we have just launched a new fully robotic logistics tool which allows us to improve the speed of deliveries to our stores and strongly develop our digital activity on our island.
What are your plans for Danone Réunion ?
Sorélait Danone is one of our first lines created in Reunion. It was in 1988 that Bernard Hayot, encouraged by Paul Vergës, decided to build this yogurt production factory in the ZAC 2000 at the Port. Industry is the historic business of the GBH group. it is therefore logical that we wanted to get involved very early in this sector in La 
Meeting. Local production is a priority for our group and we believe that the food autonomy of Reunion Island is a priority strategic subject..
Our involvement is therefore important and we continue to invest massively in this factory. We have just completed a major investment of five million euros which made it possible to modernize our yogurt production line and increase productivity.. We are currently working on a new investment of more than 10 million euros which will make it possible to launch new products and expand the local offer in terms of dairy desserts.. We are very proud of the quality of the products from our Port factory and each year we obtain excellent marks and congratulations from Danone International which ranks the Reunion factory among the best in the network in the world.. This is the fruit of the remarkable work of our 80 employees.
With climate change, corporate social responsibility (RSE) becomes an increasingly important notoriety issue for all industrial companies and commercial. Is there a GBH CSR strategy that applies to all its subsidiaries??
Indeed, we are fully aware of the issues and our responsibilities in this area. GBH s’engage, with all of its subsidiaries, in a global approach to sustainable development around five axes : the energy transition, water consumption, the fight against food waste waste management and eco-responsibility. First of all, in the energy transition : GBH and its subsidiaries are pursuing an energy optimization approach, whether through the search for efficient equipment or alternative production methods with renewable energies. These commitments are now found in the building design phase, including during renovation work.
So, as I mentioned, the total overhaul of our Grand Nord shopping center in Sainte-Clotilde is a good example of this, since the exterior spaces, the building and its equipment, have all been designed to reconcile customer comfort and environmental performance during its renovation carried out in 2021.
What about the deployment of photovoltaic power plants on your buildings? ?
Since 2010, GBH is committed to the production of electricity from renewable sources with its subsidiary Solebam. Around thirty photovoltaic installations have been put into service on the roofs of the group's buildings, either by injection into the public electricity network, is, for the most recent, for direct self-consumption. Fin 2021, the total surface area of solar panels equipping the group's subsidiaries amounted to nearly 60,000 m² of photovoltaic panels, including 23,000 m² in Reunion, but also in Martinique, in Guadeloupe and the Dominican Republic, thus avoiding the emission of nearly 6,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2021. The energy produced represents nearly 8,400 MW/h, i.e. the consumption of more than two thousand households.
What are your actions to preserve water resources? ?
This is the second axis. The group carries out permanent actions to reduce water consumption through recycling and water recovery solutions., the installation of more efficient equipment that consumes less water and also thanks to the control of its aqueous discharges and the prevention of the risk of accidental pollution. In order to best control the collection and treatment of waste water, parking lot water, runoff, etc. before release into the natural environment, upgrade or renovation work on purification systems — hydrocarbon separators, sludge collectors… — are undertaken regularly. for example, as part of the renovation of the Grand Nord shopping center in Reunion, all wastewater collection and treatment systems have been upgraded and improved.
In the fight against food waste, what are you doing ?
Since 2018, GBH is committed to a virtuous approach to reducing waste volumes in its hypermarkets by improving the management of unsold items and products with close expiry dates., to optimize donations to food banks. In 2021, the group distributed a million meals to food banks. In the meeting, 253,683 meals were distributed to beneficiary associations. Beyond the social commitment of this approach, almost 662 tonnes of waste were avoided. But we are also committed to the circular economy and waste recovery. The main objective of GBH is to encourage the direction of waste generated towards recovery channels rather than simple destruction.. To do this, GBH subsidiaries continued their optimization work with local waste professionals in order to ensure the collection and processing of their waste towards suitable and approved outlets. In 2021, as part of the Fourmize project, a Fourmizière was inaugurated in the parking lot of the Grand Nord shopping center. The sorting gesture is rewarded by a system of cumulative points, les Mises, usable in partner brands of the shopping center. The objective is to offer a solution for collecting recyclable waste sorted at multi-flow voluntary drop-off points open to all.. The quality of sorting makes it possible to supply local short circuit reuse or recovery sectors.. otherwise, the use of “second life” products is widely deployed in GBH brands. Decathlon is also committed to the reconversion of defective items which are now repaired, reconditioned and put back for sale at a lower cost.
Here we enter eco-responsibility… What does the fifth axis cover? ?
For several years, GBH is involved in an eco-citizenship and eco-responsibility approach whose objective is to promote the dissemination of good environmental practices to the general public. As part of European Waste Reduction Week, the large shopping centers of Reunion Island organized Upcycling Week with the involvement of local artisans engaged in the circular economy approach. Through demonstrations and participatory workshops, these artisans were able to highlight their creations and educate visitors about the principle “how to use old to make new”.
After the outbreak of the health crisis, GBH responded to what could be called a call for help from the Mascarene food bank. What form does this support take? ?
Beyond the donations made by Carrefour Réunion, which contribute to the fight against food waste that I was talking about, In January 2022, GBH signed a partnership agreement with the Federation of Food Banks to help respond to the increase in demand for help from the most deprived people and to replenish emergency food stocks which are currently at most down. This is the first time that the food bank network has benefited from large-scale support in three overseas regions simultaneously. : The meeting, of course, and the West Indies. GBH commits logistical resources and specific budgets to make its container loading platforms available and ensure the delivery of supplies to Guadeloupe, in Martinique and Reunion. GBH finances the transport of foodstuffs at the rate of several containers per year, thus offering food banks access to its mainland container stuffing platforms. The volume of goods 
transported to the three overseas territories will thus be increased very significantly and will also improve the diversity of foods offered, especially those intended for early childhood. As such, since May 2022, three containers were delivered to the Mascarene food bank for around 30 tonnes of essential foodstuffs, which were distributed to the beneficiary associations. I would like to say that we attach particular interest to our solidarity commitment to the food bank, who does tremendous in-depth work working closely with underprivileged populations. We are aware that the crises have led to a serious weakening of the populations of our territories.
MICHEL LAPEYRE, AN EXEMPLARY CAREER
CHEZ GBH
Graduated from the former Supélec higher school of electricity in 1985 (today Centrale-Supélec), Michel Lapeyre began his career at the semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics. In 1988, he meets the founder of GBH, Bernard Hayot, who wishes to surround himself with young graduates from engineering or business schools to entrust them with positions of responsibility. Michel Lapeyre joined GBH in early 1989, putting his engineering skills at the service of the group’s development. He has been Managing Director Africa–Middle East–Maghreb–Indian Ocean of the GBH group since 2012..
