20 September 2017

Il n'a pas réfléchi...

Yesterday I talked to the woman who has been delivering our bread every week for a couple of years now. It was her last tournée (delivery run). I told her we were very disappointed with the baker's decision to end the service. We've been customers since 2004, but we're more likely to buy bread elsewhere now. The bakery is bound to lose a lot of customers.

Bertie the cat and Tasha the puppy don't seem to understand what all the commotion is about.

"He didn't think this through," Véronique said, candidly, about the baker's decision. "Other customers have been telling me the same thing you're saying. They don't see themselves making a special trip down to the village center just for a loaf of bread. They'll buy bread at the supermarket in Saint-Aignan or Noyers, or at one of the other bakeries that they drive by when they go out to do their grocery shopping." I think that's what I'll end up doing too. The only other businesses in the village center are a café-newsstand-tabacco shop, a hair salon, and a post office.

Véronique said she has had 88 regular stops along her route this year, and that, like us, the people who live in those houses have mostly been buying a baguette or two — or some other bread — every time she comes by. It seems like that would be profitable for the boulanger. Maybe he's a proud man who thinks the bread he makes is so good that people will just drive to his shop every day for a fresh loaf. I'm afraid I won't. I'm too busy to take the car out that often just for a loaf of bread.

I made stuffed tomatoes yesterday.

The baker's letter makes it plain that he will still deliver bread and other baked goods to people who can't drive or walk to the bakery. He especially wants, his letter says, to continue the service for elderly people. But they will have to sign up and then phone in their orders. Until now, the "bread lady" drove up, blew her horn, and you went out and bought whatever you wanted out of her van. You could also place a special order for things like croissants or sweet pastries, and she'd bring them on her next visit. I hope people who depend on the service might be able to put in standing orders for deliveries on a regular basis and not have to telephone the bakery every few days.

Here's the letter we got in our mailbox.

We have plenty of freezer space right now, so we can buy three or even six baguettes at a time, cut them up, and freeze them. We already do that on a smaller scale because our deliveries were cut back to just three times a week last year, and we often buy two or three baguettes at a time. We try to remember to take bread out a couple of hours before lunchtime every day so that it's thawed, and then we heat it up for four minutes in the oven. If we need to, we can thaw bread quickly in the microwave using a special setting for that purpose. It works really well.

14 comments:

  1. Surely paying Veronique (and payroll taxes) plus gas and maintenance on the truck must be a drag on the bottom line. Bread seems to be so inexpensive in France that the profit margin on a baguette must be very slim in the first place.
    I wonder if that butcher is still plying his trade on the road.

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    1. But if the baker loses more than 100 customers (more than 1 per household) that could be significant. This is a village, not even a town. The total population is 1200, and most of those people buy their bread at the supermarket I'm sure. I've read that the cost of a baguette is 80% or 90% labor, not ingredients. The butcher is still driving around. I saw him a month or so ago in some town when I was out on an errand. His products were so expensive that we had to let him go. And then I enjoy going to supermarkets and outdoor markets, so I wasn't his kind of customer. Fresh bread is nice to have every day, but you have to live in town to get that. For meat, well...

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  2. I'm so happy that Tasha and Bertie are friends. We'll always remember your good ole days when bread was delivered to your door...

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    1. Yep, those were the good old days. Not sure I want to let go of them yet.

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  3. that's how small towns die! buying bulk from the baker instead of the supermarket may just keep another trader and town alive - he's obviously thought the service through and if its not cost effective he can't go on. He's in business for the money after all.

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    1. Seems to me that charging just a little bit more for the bread brought to your house than what you would pay at the bakery would be a smart thing to do. I know I'd be glad to pay a little premium for delivered bread.

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  4. That's a lovely photo of Bertie and Tasha. I'm sorry to hear about the bread delivery. I remember her coming when we visited in 2011--what a wonderful convenience! I remember having the milkman deliver milk to a metal box at our side door a few times a week when I was young. And he picked up the empties. But that service is long gone. I guess the only thing that we have delivered anymore (other than packages) is the newspaper. The ice cream man still comes around in the summer. :)

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    1. If we had a reason to go out in the car every day — if we worked for a living, for example — stopping at a boulangerie wouldn't be a problem. But taking the car out daily just to go buy a loaf of bread... no. The drive-up bread van was a huge convenience.

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  5. If he bread baker is going to continue deliveries to people who are housebound, or close to it, he may realize that he's lost a lot of customers who, like you, aren't going to go into the shop. Perhaps he'll wise up in time and resume the delivery schedule. Fingers crossed.
    Meanwhile, those stuffed tomatoes look delicious. I am drooling.

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    1. Your scenario might just play itself out over the next weeks or months. What I've wondered for years is what the bakers do with surplus bread. They must have some surplus every day (though sometimes bakeries do run out of bread toward the end of the day). There must be a network of some kind to get the old bread to companies that make and market bread crumbs, for example.

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  6. "what the bakers do with surplus bread"--that may be one of the great mysterious questions of our time, along with what do the car dealers do with all those unsold cars on their lots? (I know, but it's been a weird day. :-) )
    I hate to see the supermarkets going after the small, independent food purveyors, because while there is great convenience in having lots of varieties in one place, the taste is too often inferior. And the profits go to multinational corporations rather than to locals.

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    1. It's the Walmart-ization of society, I guess. Economies of scale and all that. See my post today...

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