With inflation, no more restaurant dining for lunch. According to INSEE, prices shot up 6.3% in one year in France and 14.8% in the food sector. As a result, the crowds in restaurants, where food costs on average around 15 euros, have been reduced considerably.
It falls around 50% in Paris and up to 70% in Marseille at noon, according to Franck Chaumes, president of the Union of Trades and Hotel Industries (Umih), quoted by Le Parisien. Restaurants no longer fit the nails of restaurant vouchers, which generally amount to between 9 and 10 euros in companies.
“It is a movement in big cities and in medium-sized towns”, confirms Alain Fontaine, manager of Mestruet in Paris and president of the Maîtres-Restaurateurs association, who speaks on BFMTV of an “anglo-saxonization of our consumption at lunchtime ”.
“If you go to London or New York, you see everyone with a bag of sandwiches,” he says. Alain Fontaine explains this phenomenon by the fact that “companies have done everything possible to keep employees in front of their computers or desks, which has not escaped investors in sandwich chains.”
Snack sales rose 12.5% in supermarkets
The bakeries themselves compete with supermarkets, where the sandwich costs around 2 euros. “We cannot fight against an industry that makes its sandwiches by the millions,” says Maxime Lefebvre, manager of several Amiens bakeries on BFMTV, who “sees this change more and more.”
All the snack items exploded. Between 2021 and 2022, sales of sandwiches, baguettes, triangles, wraps and other bagels in these supermarkets shot up 12.5%, according to the Nielsen firm. In 2023, these products experienced a further increase of 5.2% compared to the beginning of 2022.
Alain Fontaine, however, denounces the “junk food” of sandwiches bought in supermarkets. He opposes his “very strong economic side” to the “passionate professions” of bakers and restaurateurs “who fight for their customers to eat well, and at the same time to maintain their business, their family and their employees.”
“The French will have to know what they want, to eat well or eat badly, and at what price”, declares the president of the Maîtres-Restaurateurs. If it is about inflation, “it is also a matter of choice”, according to Maxime Lefevre. “There are people who prefer to spend their money on other things than on eating well,” he says.
Source: BFM TV
