22,848 boxes of Hénaff pâté. A special convoy should arrive this Wednesday, May 17, 2022 in Ukraine, for sailors, loaded with the shepherd's pie par excellence. It all began two months ago, when Stéphane Audrand, a reserve officer for the French army, set out to send three thousand boxes of Hénaff dough to Ukrainian sailors. Beyond a gesture of naval camaraderie, this idea is quite a symbol: "the pâté Hénaff is emblematic of the rations of the French army," explains Stéphane Audrand.
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Thanks to an online fundraiser launched on March 15, appealing to the solidarity of sailors and Bretons, Stéphane Audrand sees his hopes multiplied and raises enough money to buy not three thousand boxes of pâté, as he hoped, but 22,848. That's seven pallets filled.
But the momentum of solidarity did not stop there. Jaques Duplessy, a volunteer for the Safe association, which set up a humanitarian bridge with the Ukrainian Medical Aid Committee from the beginning of the conflict, heard about this initiative and immediately offered to help. "Humanitarian transport to Ukraine is expensive. With our association we send aid by truck every week to Ukraine so we immediately offered Stéphane to transport the pâté free of charge, "says Jacques Duplessy. The truck will be received in Uzhgorod by the Medical Aid Committee before being sent to Odessa for the Ukrainian Navy.