ALTHOUGH many people regard vegetables as no more than a basic food, in Xavier Naville's eyes, they are living things, breathing oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Naville, from Paris, assumed the position of CFO at the food service company Compass Group in China in 1997. Three years later, he gave up this position and started his own business producing fresh-cut vegetables.

"In China, people's lifestyle is changing. They spend money differently, more on entertainment and less on food," Naville said.

Thanks to his experience in the food industry, Naville realized that many city dwellers preferred to dine out or buy convenient food to eat at home.

"People do not always buy raw food, like before. They are starting to buy prepared food from hypermarkets," he said.

Naville recalled it was in the 1990s that the fresh-cut vegetable industry rose in France. Before that, his mother always bought vegetables in open air markets because she believed they were fresher and cheaper than packaged vegetables sold in supermarkets.

However, as time passed, she found it easier to cook packaged vegetables.

"Maybe because packaged vegetables were more convenient, maybe because their quality improved, my mother gradually changed her thinking," Naville said.

In China, Naville thought, safety was a concern that affected people's eating habits. Improvement in living standards prompted people to pay more attention to their health by eating a healthy diet.

Creative Food

In 2000, Naville created Creative Food China, providing value added products like ready-to-eat salads and packaged fresh vegetables.

"Fresh-cut vegetables are a new product for China. Also, we are introducing salad culture to the country," Naville said.

Based on their market analysis, Naville said, Creative Food's target market is divided into three groups.

Young, single white-collar workers aged 25 to 35 are open to new tastes and products. Married ladies from 30 to 40 years old are included because they are concerned with the health of their children and family members. The third group includes high-end consumers including overseas Chinese families who are familiar with Western culture and prone to eat salad with their lunch or dinner.

Although the fresh vegetables of Creative Food have conquered the main supermarkets in Shanghai and some foreign food chains around China, many people are still hesitant to trust the quality of packaged vegetables.

Speaking to these people's concerns, Naville said it was difficult to preserve the quality of harvested vegetables.

After vegetables are harvested, they are handled by farmers, sellers then finally buyers. During this long transportation process, vegetables are "destroyed" little by little as they are exposed to higher temperatures.

"But if we put them in a cold environment, the breath of these living organisms will slow down and the destruction will become slower as well," Naville said. In order to keep vegetables fresh for a longer time, they have to be stored at one to four degrees centigrade.

Challenging market

Theoretically, Naville's ideas are reasonable. But in reality, it was not easy to persuade local farmers to plant vegetables following his instructions.

Through his many contacts with farmers in different places, Naville said it was interesting to find that farmers around the world thought in the same way. "Wherever I go, I see farmers dealing with the soil," Naville said. "Chinese farmers are very practical. They do not believe what people say."

A clear example he experienced took place in Wuhan, the capital city of Central China's Hubei Province. Two years ago, he showed iceberg lettuce to farmers in Wuhan and told them he hoped they could grow this kind of vegetable. The farmers shook their heads, saying no.

"Later, we grew it ourselves in Wuhan and took the farmers to the fields," Naville recalled. After looking at the good results, these farmers agreed at once to plant iceberg lettuce for him.

"Seeing is believing, so we decide to have our own fields to show farmers that they could do it," Naville said.

Creative Food has already established four factories in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan with over 600 employees. Apart from Naville and the research and development manager, all employees are from China.

In spite of his fast adaptation to China and his fluency in Chinese, Naville said that he was always a laowai (foreigners) in Chinese eyes.

"I think in the Western way and do in the Chinese way. China is a country with a very complicated culture, I have to build a team that will help me interact with farmers and clients," he said.

The thing that makes the fresh-cut vegetable industry different is that it has no inventory. "Our products are short-lived. Keeping vegetables fresh means we are always in a high-pressure situation. I want my employees to cope with this challenge and make quick decisions," Naville said.

According to Naville, Creative Food was playing the role of middleman between customers and farmers. Facing customers who are professionals accustomed to maintaining high quality standards in their own products, Naville and his workers have to supply products with the same quality.

"The market is risky and we must understand it very well. Farmers do not know the market, we only need them to focus on quality and leave the market to us," he said.