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This MBA Has Created A LinkedIn For The Food Industry

Angy Lemaire’s food industry social network helps customers track their food, from the farm to the breakfast table

By  Scott Kanowsky

Thu Mar 16 2017

BusinessBecause
Angy Lemaire’s career has seen him move from electronic engineering at large firms to, most recently, the helm of a food industry social network.

Armed with an International MBA from EMLYON Business School, Angy - and his partner Thierry Vuaille - created Bovimarket, a big data-crunching platform that brings food industry professionals together.

Angy describes the France-based platform as akin to LinkedIn—but its added value is in the information it provides to anyone involved in food consumption or production.

“There is a problem right now of people thinking that they aren’t eating high-quality food,” Angy says.

Bovimarket resolves this type of dilemma by helping both consumers and industry professionals learn more about the companies that handle their food products. On the Bovimarket platform, restaurant diners can discover more about their meal’s journey, from the farm to their plate.

Launched in late 2015, Bovimarket first began to take shape after Angy and Thierry both attained post-graduate degrees from EMLYON Business School in France - Thierry graduated from the school’s Executive MBA program.

The two budding entrepreneurs met at an EMLYON event months after their respective graduations, and there they found a common interest.

“We had the same understanding of the problems facing the agroindustry, and that was where we started developing the idea [for Bovimarket],” Angy says.

Angy and Thierry dedicated the next months to creating their overall strategy for the company, and then set off on a funding search. Since landing an initial series of funding, the two have begun establishing a strong network of professionals inside the food industry—from chefs to butchers to farmers.

As Bovimarket has grown, EMLYON has also continued to support the two entrepreneurs.

“We are still doing our jobs, but every month we see our teachers from our MBAs to ask for guidance on how to improve the idea, the implementation, and how to bring more value to our customers,” Angy says.

The school even sent out market research surveys on Bovimarket to its undergraduate business students. Angy is still using the feedback he received to improve Bovimarket’s image and outreach.

Coming from an engineering background, Angy decided to pursue an MBA at EMLYON to learn how to connect his technical knowledge with effective business strategies, and gain a holistic view of business.

“From my experience, I had learned that you could have the best product in the world, but it’s really not sufficient,” Angy explains. “You have to know how to sell it.”

He’s applying his MBA learnings on Bovimarket – one day he might work on the technical side of the product, another day he might shift gears to advertising.

Recently, Angy hired a former Michelin star chef to liaise with restaurants. Besides the chef’s accolades, there’s another reason for the hire. According to Angy, restaurant diners actually used to follow this chef around his local market to be sure that they were buying the right quality produce.

Now, Angy wants people to use Bovimarket, as a seamless digital aid, to check the quality of their food.

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