Should France reduce the size of its baguettes to stop waste?
Would you welcome a smaller loaf?
Would you welcome a smaller baguette from your local boulangerie, or do you think they are just right as they are?
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How often do you find yourself throwing away baguette bread that has gone too stale to eat? A new study has suggested that reducing the size of baguettes in France could help to combat food waste.
Up to six baguettes per person are thrown in the bin in France every year, according to the study by the anti-food-waste app Too Good To Go - an app which helps people find leftovers from local bakeries and food shops to avoid the produce from being wasted.
The study found that 60% of people admit to having thrown away leftover baguettes, which - when they are freshly made at the local boulangerie - do not stay soft for long due to a lack of additives (in contrast to supermarket bread or packaged loaves, for example).
Earlier this month, the same company estimated that 150,000 tonnes of bread are wasted in France every year, the equivalent to 10% of total production. It also found that 72% of people visit the boulangerie at least once a week.
A baguette may be slightly revived if it is only just going stale; for example, one method includes sprinkling it with water and baking it for a few minutes at low temperature; and a just-stale loaf may still make good toast if you are able to slice it.
However, it does not take long before a fresh baguette becomes too tough and hard to eat, and so is thrown away.
Read more: Five things they don’t tell you about baguettes in France
Read also: Are people being fined over France’s new obligatory food waste rules?
Anti-waste alternatives?
One bakery is already offering smaller alternatives to avoid waste.
“We offer half baguettes or ‘la ficelle’ (smaller baguettes) for those who like the ends,” said baker Guadalupe Bringolf in Bischheim (Bas-Rhin) to FranceInfo.
Read also: Learn from the French: how to order the perfect baguette
Read more: French ‘cannot tell a good baguette anymore’ says bread historian
And while some customers in the Bringolfs’ boulangerie admitted to throwing away bread on occasion, others were staunchly against big reductions in the size of baguettes.
“Oh no, I would not be in favour [of smaller loaves]. It’s a French tradition, the baguette [as it is],” said one.
Another suggested that storing the bread for later was a good solution. She said: “There are only two of us at home, so when we buy bread, we freeze part of it.”
However, baguettes have already been getting gradually smaller over the years, FranceInfo suggests, with the average weight dropping from 300g per loaf 65 years ago, and to 250g in the 1970s.
Would you welcome the option of a smaller baguette to reduce waste? Do you find yourself regularly throwing away leftover bread? Or do you have some great ways to revive a tough loaf? Please let us know via feedback@connexionfrance.com.
