Foie gras will not be missing from Christmas tables. Erasing the last traces of bird flu, French foie gras production has regained its momentum and faces the holidays with optimism. “I have very good news: we have calm professionals, certainly vigilant, but very optimistic” in view of the upcoming end-of-year holidays, said the president of the foie gras interprofessional association (Cifog), Fabien Chevalier, during a press conference held this Tuesday in Paris.
French foie gras has recovered from two difficult years. Avian flu hit goose and duck farms hard in the winter of 2021 and spring of 2022, causing foie gras production to plummet: it plummeted by more than 30% in 2022, falling below the 9,000-tonne mark. If the recovery began in 2023 thanks to the vaccination campaign, production did not really return to normal until 2024, when just under 15,800 tons were recorded.
For this new season, an improvement is confirmed on the horizon: French foie gras production promises to remain stable in 2025 compared to the previous year, Cifog estimates “in view of the level of sacrifices made during the first eight months” of the year.
Consumer Feedback
Consumers should be present if we look at their latest Easter or Valentine’s purchases. In-store purchases for home consumption increased by 55% in volume and 42% in value in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period of the previous year, where they had already recorded double-digit increases (+15% in volume and +14% in value), Cifog reports, citing data from Kantar/Numerator.
Given the reduction in supply, but also the sharp increase in prices, the French reduced their purchases of foie gras in 2022-2023. Barring an unexpected change, the year 2025 should consolidate the recovery dynamics observed in 2024, predicts the interprofessional association, which lists an increase in the number of purchasing households (+24%), an increase in the average quantities purchased (+10.4%) and an increase in the frequency of purchases (+13.5%) in the first half of 2025.
The return to an expanded offer in stores allows us to “find our traditional buyer homes”, underlines its general director, Marie-Pierre Pé, to BFM Business. At the worst moment of the crisis, insufficient production caused a concentration of supply around a limited number of products, due to the impossibility of guaranteeing the usual supply on the shelves.
And what about the prices? The latter “will be stable on average” compared to last year, suggests Marie-Pierre Pé. Promotional operations will be carried out in stores starting at the end of November, because “the brands have been able to work with distributors again, now that production has recovered,” he indicates. The interprofessional association has invested 2 million euros in a major communication campaign that foresees, among other things, the return of foie gras to television advertisements.
Source: BFM TV
