23 September 2017

Carrefour part à l'assaut

Carrefour is the Walmart of France, I guess you could say. It's one of several chains of hypermarchés (superstores) in France, along with Auchan, Leclerc, and Géant. Even SuperU and Intermarché have hypermarchés in some places. Usually, the big stores have a boulangerie in them. Here's an article from 2015 about Carrefour's efforts to compete directly with the traditional boulangeries (bread bakeries) in France.

Carrefour declares war on traditional French bread bakeries
The huge Carrefour retail chain has updated its bread-making methods to appeal to today’s tastes. In all, Carrefour sells 50 million « baguettes ordinaires » and 20 million « baguettes rustiques » in its 200 or more French “hypermarkets.”

Approximately 200 Carrefour hypermarchés, or 90% of the stores in the chain, have set out to win over the traditional bakery’s clientele in France, using recipes from days of yore to make bread in the traditional style. Perhaps the best example is the chain’s baguette rustique, which is superior in quality to the baguette ordinaire. Carrefour bakes nearly 20 million baguettes rustiques annually, and more than double that number — some 50 million — of its baguettes ordinaires. They are made and baked in Carrefour hypermarchés by 2,200 bakers in every part of France.

There are no "hypermarkets" in Saint-Aignan.
In the town of Villeneuve-la-Garenne, north of Paris, in a brand new hypermarché, 17,000 baguettes rustiques are sold every month, as well as 20,000 baguettes ordinaires, for, respectively 90 cents and 46 cents apiece. That’s revenues of more than 300,000 euros annually just for those two products. "Water, yeast, salt, natural sourdough leavening — everything must be handled with great care," explains the store’s bread baker as he prepares a mid-afternoon batch of twenty or so baguettes rustiques. He has been baking bread at the Villeneuve-la -Garenne store since it opened a year and a half ago. To qualify for his permanent position as a baker at Carrefour, he earned a Certificate of Professional Aptitude (CAP) in bread and pastry baking, as well as a Certificate of Professional Studies (BEP), both at a school in the Paris suburb of Pantin.

40,000 tons of flour per year

After they’re cooked, the baguettes are displayed on old-fashioned wooden self-service racks as well as upon request from an employee behind a display case for fancier breads, such as poppy-seed or whole-grain. "We designed the bread wrappers so that they are transparent and allow customers to see the product while at the same time letting the bread  breathe, thanks to micro-fiber paper," says Bruno Lebon, director for fresh products at Carrefour-France.

As to the flour used, the supermarket chain has chosen to buy from only twenty select French mills. "The vast majority of the mills are small businesses that we work with long-term — some of the relationships go back more than 20 years," Lebon explains.
A Paris street scene

Ordering 40,000 tons of flour annually, Carrefour is a major outlet for French mills. "For each of our breads we have defined precise specifications. For example, for our baguette rustique, we use a flour made for French tradition breads that is certified Label Rouge or CCP (Certification de Conformité Produit). For the baguette ordinaire, we use a conventional T65 flour" [recommended for breads, pizza crusts, etc.], he says. "The Carrefour company has long understood that bread is an important part of daily life for French consumers and that we cannot neglect the quality of the bread we sell or we'll risk seeing our customers defect to one of the 32,000 traditional bakeries that are in business throughout France."

9 comments:

  1. As I said yesterday, I buy baguettes ordinaires, 4 to 6 at a time, at Carrefour Cité, a Carrefour proximity convenience store, a little further down the street. I find them very good.

    Monoprix, still a little further, also sells bread, but I never tried it for some reason.

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    1. I think that Carrefour bread is good too... but then, I like nearly all bread. We usually buy tradition française bread.

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  2. It's interesting. I hope the traditional bakers survive, as they have here, but in case the supermarket bread is not of the highest standard.

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    1. The traditional bakers will survive, but their bread will be more and more expensive and there will be fewer and fewer of them.

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  3. One of our bakers in Preuilly closed his shop a few years ago and went to work for LeClerc in le Blanc. For him, with a young family, he wanted the security of a salary rather than the risk and hassle of running his own business. He didn't own the premises and the landlord refused to modernise the building.

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    1. Saint-Aignan had five boulangeries in 2003, and now there are two. There are two in Noyers as well, and one in Mareuil.

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  4. Carrefour was our local grocery store in Buenos Aires although I bought my bread and sweets at the local bakery .. fresh out of the oven :)

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  5. We've never bought bread in a supermarket or hypermarche in France, only in boulangeries, but then again, we've only been there as visitors. I suspect the baguettes that Carrefour is making are better than 99% of those made in the US, and probably 100% of those made in supermarkets here.

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  6. Mom-and-Pop bakeries here in the States have really died out, too. The big grocery stores all have bakeries, now, and everyone just buys their bread, cakes, pastries there. We had one hold out... Lubely's... a good ways away from my house. People loved going there, just for the feel of knowing that it was family owned. It's closing up shop, we just heard. After decades and decades in business.

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