"Personally, I prefer these fries to those of my grandmother," says Maxime Debrye before bursting into laughter, a little embarrassed: "I say that the McCain logo on my blouse, it's really…" He never ends not his sentence but we can complete it: it's really… expected, coming from the director of a frozen french fries factory.
"We do not offer a product made to compete with homemade but a different product", he justifies.
And yet, the “Tradistyle” fries have everything of an artisanal fries.
“It's a fries that is rustic and has a terroir side thanks to its cut.
"
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To understand this, the man in the blouse takes us to the production line.
The potatoes are delivered by truck from Hauts-de-France and Belgium before being graded, stored, washed, peeled and cut.
“We don't want to show the machine that cuts it.
It is a very specific know-how that we do not want to share.
“Trade secret, then.
Our guide still agrees to show us the cutting block of the machine: a cylinder on which is fixed an intersection of blades that form diamonds.
“It's only the cut that distinguishes a 'Tradistyle' fry from a classic '9/9' fry,” he says, referring to the perfectly standardized classic frozen fries.
Read also The incredible saga of the fries: the day when the Belgians thought they had invented the famous potato stick
The peeled potatoes hit the block 100 km away and the vibration of the blades cuts them irregularly.
No two fries are the same.
»The fries are then precooked in water, dried, immersed in an immense oil bath of 8 to 10 t of sunflower oil at 175 ° C and then frozen in a metal tunnel for 15 min.
Their temperature then drops from 90 ° C to -12 ° C.
We will find them a few days, weeks, months, even years later, on the plates of our restaurants.
But what interest for catering professionals to use these products?
"It's not to work", slice Xavier Denamur, owner of the restaurant Au petit fer à cheval, in Paris, and activist of homemade.
Does this imply that frozen food is cheaper for a restaurant owner?
We went to the kitchen to check it out.
To make 1 kg of homemade fries, Xavier Denamur needs 1 kg and 50 grams of potatoes.
Cost ?
€ 0.92.
The potatoes are then peeled, cut, rinsed ... Duration of the operation?
5 minutes.
The lowest salaries in the kitchen being € 17 gross per hour minimum, it costs € 1.42 in payroll.
Add the price of sunflower oil, € 0.19, and you get 1 kg of fries at € 2.53 excl. Tax, or € 0.63 excl. Tax for a plate of 250 g of homemade fries.
A la carte price: 5 euros including tax.
Nice margin!
McCain's Tradistyle frozen fries cost $ 2.02 per kilo at professional Metro stores. Payroll corresponding to peeling and cutting? 0 euro. The cost of the oil remains: € 0.19. Result: € 2.21 per kilo and € 0.55 excluding tax for the plate. The selling price to the customer, on the other hand, could be quite the same. “There is an 8 cent difference in cost price, observes Xavier Denamur. It is minimal! But for a restaurant that sells several hundred pounds each week, that can make all the difference. “Above all, says Xavier Denamur, the restaurant owner no longer needs to manage the staff. "
So how do you know if the fries you order at a restaurant are homemade or not? It refers to the “Homemade” logo, representing a pan covered with a roof, ensuring that the products are processed and cooked on site. This is usually displayed on menus or on windows. Another clue: when all the restaurant's cuisine is not home-made but its fries are yes, then this must be indicated with an explicit mention: “home fries”, “fries cooked on site”… Scammers, be careful! Because the consumer code provides that “deceptive commercial practices (…) are punishable by imprisonment for two years and a fine of 300,000 euros. "
Having said that, are homemade fries really any better than frozen ones? We did a test with chef Chloé Charles, an itinerant cook seen in Top Chef and who currently signs the menu for the Carnavalet museum restaurant, Les jardins d'Olympe. "I would say these are going to be better and they're homemade because the color and cuts aren't consistent," she said, gesturing to a plate of McCain's Tradistyle. We tie a blindfold over his eyes to check it blindly.
"It's a little dry on the inside and a little floury," she said again of the same Tradistyle, not knowing that these are the fries she was talking about just before. "It tastes like frozen fries," she blurted out, after biting into a McCain "9x9" fry. And the last, made on site, at Xavier Denamur's bistro? “They're a little less crispy but they taste really good. The potatoes are very good. »Chloé Charles ranks the house fries first, followed by the Tradistyle then the 9x9. Like what, maybe with the taste too, we can make the difference!
