The baguette faces an uncertain future. How France is rethinking its iconic loaves

A decline in bread consumption and new takes on bread baking are among the forces challenging the baguette's place on French tables. (Chesnot/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

PARIS - When the baguette received official UNESCO heritage status in Paris in 2022, the French delegation waved slender loaves of crusty bread triumphantly in the air, in a photo op that went viral around the world.

French president Emmanuel Macron hailed the baguette as “250 grams of magic and perfection in our daily lives” on social media, accompanied by an iconic vintage black-and-white Willy Ronis photo of a jubilant little French boy captured mid-run with a long baguette tucked under his tiny arm.

But the UNESCO victory, which saw the artisanal know-how of French breadmaking and the culture of the baguette inscribed in its intangible cultural heritage list, appears to have done little to reverse the ongoing decline of bread consumption in France, generating headlines like, “Will bread disappear from French tables?” in French food media.

Historically, the French ate an average of 25 ounces of bread per person, per day in the years following World War II. According to the Federation of Bakery Entrepreneurs, by 2015 that number plummeted to 4 ounces. Today, that figure has dropped again to 3.5 ounces, equal to a little less than half a baguette a day.

In a 2023 consumer survey released by the National Confederation of French Bakeries and Pastry Shops (CNBPF), more than a third (36 per cent) of the 1,000 respondents also said they had reduced their bread consumption over the last five years.

Industry experts say it’s a trend driven by changing eating habits, along with a new generation of “neobakers,” some of whom are opting to take baguettes off their shelves entirely, and the growing popularity of the baguette’s American rival, processed sliced white bread.

“One of the threats is the fact that young people are losing the habit of buying a baguette every day,” says Dominique Anract, president of the CNBPF.

Daily baguette runs to the local bakery — an errand that Anract says used to be as automatic and ritualistic as brushing teeth — have become less frequent.

But this is especially true of younger generations, who are cooking less and eating out more.

“In the past, even students cooked for themselves. There was no snacking, no ‘world food,’ no burgers, kebabs or sushi. But more and more young people are turning towards fast food,” he says.

A boulangerie with no baguettes?

Traditionally, baguettes are eaten as open-faced tartines at breakfast, slathered with butter and jam, or chocolate hazelnut spread. At lunch, they’re stuffed with ham, tuna, chicken or cheese for a take-out baguette sandwich. And at dinner, they’re the indispensable accompaniment to a traditional saucy French meal like a blanquette de veau (veal stew) or beef bourguignon, in which hunks of bread are used to mop up any remaining sauce on the plate — a gesture that has its own verb, called “saucer.”

“We see that these young people are very happy to have the traditional baguette on weekends when they visit their parents, so it is appreciated. But life has become more modern and there are different options for eating out without bread,” Anract says.

In recent years, there’s been another noteworthy shift that is changing France’s relationship to bread: the rise of “neoboulangeries” or neo-bakeries. This new generation is baking with ancient grains and organic flour, selling aromatic, long-fermented sourdough loaves and making fewer baguettes — if any at all.

Seize Heures Trente Pâtisserie-Boulangerie in Rennes is one of several bakeries across France that have made headlines for having the audacity not to sell baguettes.

When pastry chef and owner Marion Juhel expanded her pastry shop into a bakery two years ago, she made the deliberate decision not to offer baguettes. For Juhel, it’s an energy-intensive product with little nutritional value, and has a short shelf life which leads to one of her biggest pet peeves: excessive food waste.

Instead, large sourdough breads and whole grain loaves made with local, organic flour are sold by weight. Along with staying fresher for longer, the breads, which weigh up to 7 pounds, feed more households, are better for digestion thanks to longer fermentation times that break down gluten, and just taste better, she added.

But for some, the idea of a baguette-free French bakery was hard to swallow. Juhel recalls one man who flew into a rage when he was told they didn’t make any. She had to ask him to leave.

“There was a real need to educate customers so that they understood our approach,” Juhel told CNN. “It’s true that French people expect a bakery to have baguettes. And the fact that we proclaimed to be a bakery and didn’t have them was inconceivable to them.”

‘We’ve never eaten such good bread as we are right now’

Another entrepreneur who shares Juhel’s ethos is artisan pâtissier and boulanger Benoît Castel, who has been described as one of the pioneers of the modern bread movement when he made rustic sourdough loaves his signature product in 2012.

Instead of baguettes, it’s his caramelized, aromatic pain du coin — a play on words that means both local bread and quince bread, after the fruit-based sourdough starter the bread is made from — that is the big seller at his three Paris bakeries.

“Right from the start I wanted to make these large loaves, which are more traditional, like they used to be made in the past,” Castel says.

Because as Castel notes, baguettes only emerged in the 20th century as an alternative to traditional loaves that were made once a week. Unlike the time and labor-intensive pains de garde (which translates as “bread that keeps”), baguettes with their shorter baking times became popular among the Parisian bourgeoisie, who quickly developed a taste for fresh-baked white bread every day.

But while pains de garde can be eaten all week long, baguettes go stale quickly, leading to significant waste in French households.

To redress this at his own bakery, Castel created his pain d’hier et de demain (the bread of yesterday and tomorrow), made from stale, unsold inventory. Apart from a deeper, toastier-colored crumb, the zero-waste bread tastes virtually indistinguishable from freshly-baked loaves.

For Castel, the popularity of gut-friendly, organic sourdoughs and zero-waste bakeries is a reflection of an exciting time: while the French may be eating less bread, they’re eating better, he says.

“I think we’ve never eaten such good bread as we are right now. We eat very good bread today in Paris.”

‘We have to adapt’

But baker Éric Kayser, who built a mini empire of 370 bakeries around the world on the strength of his signature tradition baguette made with liquid sourdough starter, makes an interesting point about specialty breads that are taking the capital by storm.

“The problem is that that bread is much more expensive. It’s not affordable for everyone,” he says.

For context, a simple baguette, which can be made with additives and baked from frozen, is around a euro. The upper-tier artisan tradition baguette — which by law can only be made fresh with flour, water, salt and leavening, be it yeast, sourdough starter, or a combination of both — is about €1.30. By contrast, a 500-gram chunk of specialty bread, which is often sold by weight, can sell for up to €7.

“The purpose of a baguette is to feed a lot of people. Those are more elitist bakeries. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just that it corresponds to a certain type of middle-class customer,” Kayser says.

Despite declining bread consumption, Kayser says he has no worries about its demise. Even when the results of another consumer poll by the Federation of Bakery Entrepreneurs found that 86 per cent of French people admit to eating industrial, sliced white supermarket bread.

“Some older people like it because it’s easier on the teeth, and then there are young people who buy a loaf of bread, put it in the fridge where it will keep for a whole week and live a bit like Americans. It’s practical,” Anract acknowledges.

Still, Kayser scoffs at the idea that the baguette is in any real danger.

“Never in a million years. People love it.”

Kayser points out that the baguette sandwich, which is a relatively recent product that only started taking off in late ’90s and early aughts, has picked up where single baguette sales have dropped off.

In fact, Kayser is so confident in his star product that last year he opened a concept store and “baguette bar” simply called baguett. in Paris with co-founder Deborah Magnan. Along with three-foot-long sandwiches, loaves of fuschia-pink baguettes dyed with beets and studded with cranberries, or surprisingly green pistachio and white chocolate loaves are displayed in shop windows.

“It’s a simple idea, but our French customers say, ‘Why has no one ever done this before?’” Magnan says.

For Anract, neobakeries and creative bakers like Muhel, Castel and Kayser are what have always propelled France’s breadmaking culture forward.

“We have to adapt. Bakeries have always gone through crises but we’ve always reinvented ourselves.”

By Vivian Song, CNN