Logistics at the Heart of Its DNA

“For the Agence du Don en Nature, logistics is the engine at the heart of our work,” says Alexandra Vidal, ADN’s supply chain director. In just a few years, the Supply Chain division of the Agence du Don en Nature (ADN) has doubled in size. Founded in 2008, the association collects new, unsold non-food products from manufacturers and mass-market retailers, then donates them to organizations working every day to combat hardship and the exclusion of part of the population. Each year, ADN enables the distribution of 10 million products to people most in need, relying in particular on three dedicated warehouses, including one managed in-house, and three holding warehouses. With 25 employees supported by around 40 volunteers, it now has 1,500 partner organizations throughout France—twice as many as in 2018. According to the latest available figures from INSEE, 14% of France’s population experienced material and social deprivation in 2022, the highest proportion since 2013. “In recent years, we have seen an acceleration in applications, Alexandra Vidal explains. We select organizations that have been operating for more than a year and examine the processes they have put in place to support their beneficiaries… We also look at how they manage their inventory and, in most cases, encourage them to digitize their operations to ensure good traceability of the products distributed.”

To receive these donations, partner organizations place orders on ADN’s website, and the goods are delivered a few days later. “To build our catalog, we rely on donors from a range of sectors: hygiene and cleaning, well-being, home equipment, insulation products to combat energy poverty…,” the supply chain director lists. Since our founding, we have diversified according to the needs we identify and what companies donate.” Manufacturers offer their products to ADN’s “donors” division, which discusses them with the “organizations” division to determine whether they are useful to beneficiaries, and then with the “supply chain” division to assess whether the volumes can be collected, transported and repackaged into consistent parcels for certain product categories, such as clothing or school supplies, before finally being distributed.

“Donor companies can handle delivery to our warehouses—especially as the related costs can be included in the valuation of the donation, under the Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy law (AGEC), which came into force in 2022—or we collect the goods ourselves,” Alexandra Vidal explains. The products are then grouped by type. “We work, on the one hand, with two ESATs [employment support and assistance centers], one in the Loiret département and the other near us in Dourges. On the other hand, we rely on two social-integration companies, one in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and the other not far from Dourges.” A sponsor also enables the Agency to use, free of charge, holding capacity equivalent to around 1,200 locations during major operations such as “Back-to-School Solidarity” and “Christmas Solidarity.” Whether it involves rebuilding pallets, repackaging products, or “kitting” (assembling kits), all donations are then sent to ADN’s Warehouse-School (see box), its central logistics hub, from which most flows depart to deliver to the 1,500 partner organizations, with support from four carriers.

In addition to its social mission, ADN strives to decarbonize its operations as much as possible. It joined the FRET 21 program run by ADEME and AUTF in 2020 (and recommitted to it in 2024), while also using rail flows whenever possible, particularly to the AURA region (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes). “We are also advocates of slowing down: we do not deliver overnight. We coordinate with recipients to adjust delivery frequencies, so that trucks are better filled and fewer are on the roads.”