It's time we made an effort to save Traditional French restaurants from a gloomy and uncertain future

A dish at one of my favourite traditional restaurants in Lyon

No lover of traditional French cuisine will be happy with the results of a recent study which confirms the continuing downturn in the fortunes of the traditional French restaurant business and predicts that the bad news is set to continue.

The study, carried out by Xerfi, an economic studies institute specialising in market sector analysis, comes in the wake of poor performances by the restaurant business over the last few years which continued in 2012 with a drop in volume of 2% due to its vulnerability faced with consumers who are looking for ever more ways of reducing their non-essential spending.

Le Figaro has published some of the study's general conclusions, which point to a further retraction of 1% in 2013 for restaurants in general, but there's even worse news for traditional French restaurants (as opposed to Chinese, Italian and other kinds of restaurant), who are predicted to see another drop of 2% this year, resulting in a substantial total loss of 7% over 2012-2013. Figures are, however, set to pick up by less than 1% in 2014.

Those figures may not look too bad if taken in isolation, but they should be put into the wider context of the performance of food outlets in general. They include fast food restaurants, boulangeries (which have greatly increased their turnover in sandwiches and other lunchtime snacks over the last few years), and small, local supermarkets with their ranges of food designed to be eaten outside or at work.

Fast food outlets, after years of rapid growth, have seen their sales stabilise, but not drop, over the last two years, and they are predicted to bounce back more quickly over the next two years. In other words, they are continuing and will continue to eat into the market share of restaurants, and that of traditional French restaurants in particular. More competition will come in the form of an increase in the diversity of fast food fueled by boulangeries, sandwich shops and large restaurant chains.

Faced with this prospect, the restaurant business seems to be gearing up to fight back with what could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. In order to cut costs the business is beginning to interest itself in large food processing companies which, having recognised the beckoning opportunity, are working hard to increase the variety and quality of what is called 'cuisine d'assemblage' - literally, 'assembly cooking'. This relatively new range of products differs from those used by more traditional restaurants because of the use of semi or fully-prepared (although rarely frozen) products which are then 'put together' by kitchen staff. This kind of product is already being used by restaurant chains.

But cuisine d'assemblage presents a three-fold risk to the restaurant business, and traditional restaurants in particular. With much less food preparation involved there are likely to be redundancies among kitchen staff and even chefs. Also, and as all kitchen staff have to do is follow the instructions, creativity and variety are likely to take a back seat to standardised recipes. This is not good news for those who appreciate traditional restaurants which serve fresh and traditional produce and ingredients in an authentic manner, as those restaurants may well find it even harder to compete due to the relatively high cost of their meals.

Lastly, consumer belt-tightening and fierce competition from the increase in sales of fast food, restaurant chains and cuisine d'assemblage, all of which represent cheaper alternatives to traditional restaurants, resulted in the closure of around 6% of traditional restaurants between September 2011 and September 2012, and that figure is predicted to rise to even higher, record, levels in 2013.

I was saddened to read this news. As someone who eats regularly in traditional restaurants I have seen some of them close over the last few years (mainly, but not only, in urban areas), and others have chosen or been forced to cut corners and introduce some aspects of cuisine d'assemblage in order to survive.

Traditional French cuisine and restaurants still enjoy a well-deserved worldwide reputation for excellence despite the existential threat of cut-throat competition which thrives not on quality but on low prices.

The only way of reversing, or at least stabilising, this trend, is to make a conscious effort to eat in traditional restaurants despite their slightly higher prices and even if it means sacrificing one meal out a month in a Chinese or pizza joint.

I for one am not going to desert my favourite restaurants anytime soon and I hope that today's sobering news persuades others to do likewise, because if the restaurant-going public doesn't make an extra effort to support traditional restaurants, nobody else will.....

France debates the 'Nutella tax'

Brown stuff in a jar

The renowned qualities of French cuisine go a long way towards explaining why the French are 'patriotic' eaters who sometimes find it difficult to adapt to foreign food. There are two major exceptions to this general rule however, the first being the massively popular McDonalds, which I wrote about here, and Nutella, which is an equally popular chocolate hazelnut spread.

So it's not surprising that there have been dozens of articles in the French press recently about government plans to impose a massive 300% hike on palm oil, which is one of Nutella's main ingredients.

Nutella is an Italian product which was first marketed in 1963 by Italian company Ferrero, but it has been produced in a subsidiary here in France for years in order to keep up with French demand. And demand there is. It has become such an intrinsic part of growing up that I imagine that many French people would say it was actually French.

I don't know what percentage of children don't like chocolate but it is surely very low, and that is why almost every French child slathers it onto bread or toast for breakfast before heading off to school. They eat it during their afternoon snack as well. But the appeal doesn't stop there because many of those children continue to eat it long after they have grown up. It can be found piled onto pancakes (often accompanied by sliced banana) poured into cake recipe bowls, and it is present in many desserts. Few French homes do not have a jar of it in the cupboard, and my god daughter would go ballistic if ever I forgot to make sure I had some in stock for when she comes to stay.

The problem though, is that about 20% of Nutella consists of palm oil, a product which is known to have a very high saturated fat level and which is suspected of contributing to obesity and even heart disease. Also, the widespread use of palm oil in food has led to deforestation in Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere in order to create new plantations of the oil palms from which it is derived. All of this has been used by the cash-strapped government as a stick to beat it with and try to introduce a 300% tax on it. The proposal has been approved by the Senate and will now be debated in Parliament.

There has been much public debate about the proposal too, and it was even defended by a nutrition expert in one article. Her argument was 'why pick on Nutella? After all, palm oil is used in many foodstuffs and even in schools.' She says that we cannot do without it but there's no problem if we don't eat too much of it. Well that's not easy given that it is used in many bakery products, biscuits, crisps, many kinds of processed food and low-priced restaurants.

This reminds me of a....oh, never mind...

That this tax should lead to so much press coverage and debate is understandable of course, given Nutella's enormous popularity, but despite all the hue and cry the bottom line is that the tax would only lead to an almost negligeable price rise of about €0.06 per kilo.

Still, all the debate and articles will have had one positive side to them, and that is that they have served as a reminder to the public that a balanced and healthy diet is important.

So, should we be allowing our children to eat Nutella? Whatever the answer it pays to do some research, and one enterprising young Frenchman has done just that in a startling manner. Here's a video of his simple experiment, which was cheekily put to the same music that Nutella uses in its ads. Be warned, the result of his experiment is NOT a pretty sight. I don't happen to like Nutella myself and this video is certainly not likely to make me change from my usual Weetabix, banana and milk anytime soon.

Bon appetit (?)