No more industrial central kitchens, soon the Cité de l’alimentation for €60 million in Montpellier

The Cité de l’alimentation will be attached to the Marché gare.

Work on the future building that will supply the city's 88 school canteens will begin in November 2025. Delivery two years later. The kitchens will be operational at the start of the 2028 school year.

The mayor and his deputy, accompanied by a (small) part of the team of the Central Kitchens, whose site will be sold. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

“€60 million. This will be the biggest investment for the City in the decade 2020-2030. The current tool is completely obsolete.”

Michaël Delafosse, the mayor of Montpellier, is enthusiastic. Food is one of the major challenges of tomorrow. “We were receiving huge cans of food from Poland, this could not continue.” AWith his assistant, Marie Massart, both speak with one voice: the future is the city of food. The name of the central kitchens is erased as is the industrial side of the site. The new place will be almost bucolic, in any case planted, but above all educational: while providing 16,000 meals per day to schoolchildren, and even 24,000 with daycare centers and nursing homes in particular, it will largely be a question of learning.

An industrial tool that aims to be educational

“One in three children is overweight or obese, deplores the elected official for food policy. Here, we will be on something different, with an educational garden, an amphitheater to welcome children but also parents or researchers for conferences, a kitchen adapted to give cooking lessons to children…” She insists : “There is a desire for educational transparency.”

Future kitchens equipped to produce 24,000 meals per day. Midi Libre – DR

200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000

“It is not an industrial tool, underlines Antoine Assus, from BPA architecture, selected for this project. The place must accommodate schoolchildren, open up to the city. That is why there is this access bridge. It is a building that aims to be very ambitious.” €60 million therefore: including €35 million for works and €5 million for design. The remaining €20 million will go mainly to equipment.

A food ecosystem with the Marché gare and a gourmet hall

Now this project remains to be carried out. New central kitchens have been discussed since 2012. Those of La Martelle were already considered dilapidated and obsolete. The future Cité de l'alimentation will be built in a completely different district, designed around a reflection such as “a food ecosystem“: no longer say Tournezy, or even La Restanque, a stillborn name, it is now called Montpellier Sud. The building will be next to the Gare Market, which is also the subject of an ambitious rehabilitation policy, a future food hall, very trendy at the moment, and the third fire station in Montpellier.

A kitchen adapted for children's classes, but also an amphitheater, a vegetable garden, an educational trail…

“For the next fifty years”

Work on these new kitchens should begin within a year (November 2025) for delivery of the building in November 2027, and an operational site for the start of the 2028 school year, where it will then be able to supply the city's canteens.
The current site was launched by Georges Frêche in February 1982. For Michaël Delafosse, there is no doubt that this facility will prepare meals for the youngest and our elders, organic and local (or at least high-quality), “for the next fifty years”. It takes what it takes to feed the city's 88 school restaurants.

The future building is intended to be welcoming, green and above all educational. It will host schools, conferences… Midi Libre – DR

I subscribe to read the rest