Laws governing restaurant food in France

18 Jan 2012

I have read books on the subject of the dropping of gastronomic standards in France. A subject of much chestbeating in a country that has for centuries considered itself superior to all others.

But MacDonalds has got more than a toe hold there, and there is a younger generation who aren't as interested in the time consuming aspects of either producing top quality food product, or of doing long apprenticeships in tyrannical kitchens. Times have changed and standards have dropped, and big corporates have moved in.

There is little money to be made in restaurants at the high end of the market. To generate substantial profits you need volume and low wage costs, so the mentality for many is to buy in vacumn packed or frozen foods that are produced in a factory, and then use unskilled ( ie cheap) kitchen labour to simply reheat it. It happens. Whether the figures quoted in this article are true or not, I'm can't say, but certainly we're aware its a trend.

Not a new one however. I remember 20 years or so ago, having a somewhat strange conversation with a food rep who essentially told Rick that he was mad to be making all his sauces from scratch, when he could buy them ready made, and in doing so save on wage costs. When we tried to explain to this guy, that the reputation that mattered to us, was precisely that we make everything from scratch, that that is what gives us our point of difference, he told us we were kidding ourselves, becos the public can't taste the difference.

To a degree he's right. A big percentage of the public would not taste any variation and are more focused on the price, but we continue to believe that enough people can and do care about the provenance of their food, and like that an establishment cares enough to want to craft the food they serve their customers right from the basics.

We believe its at the very  core of what we do, and nothing will ever change that.

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