If there is a consumer trend that the health crisis has reinforced, when it comes to filling your cart, it is the quest for "made in France".
Consumers have been paying attention to the origin of food for some time now.
But, the pandemic has singularly amplified the trend.
In a survey recently presented by Kantar, 92% of consumers questioned declared that they favor products of French origin.
We still have to find our way around the geographical claims that flourish on the packaging.
It is an understatement to say that distributors and manufacturers have more than one trick up their sleeve to, sometimes, tell us great stories.
It is not a question here of pointing the finger at constrained companies, in order to reduce their costs, to go further and cheaper their raw materials.
Especially since our food systems are far from being autonomous.
But rather to put an end to the small arrangements of manufacturers and retailers to sell us “made in France” which is not.
"Made in France" but with butter and sugar from elsewhere in Europe
Prepared, sliced, kneaded, packaged, cooked in France.
This is certainly the most common kind of misleading information.
The bigger it is, the more it goes ... Thus La Fournée Dorée, a family business based in Vendée, sells a waste (local culinary specialty) in tricolor colors, "made in France" but with grain sugar or butter. fresh, depending on the range, "EU origin".
A name written in small at the bottom of the package which means that these ingredients come from a country of the European Union.
Not only is it vague, but it misleads the consumer who, legitimately, expects all the ingredients in the waste to be "made in France".
In the charcuterie department, even if the majority of cooked hams are now made from French pork, in accordance with consumer expectations, there are still (notably under the Herta and Fleury Michon brands) ranges "made in France" with meat. of EU origin.
At least the Fleury Michon company takes care to specify that the pig comes from Spain.
But the prize goes to the gluten-free puff pastry from Croustipate "kneaded in France" and ostensibly packaged in blue-white-red colors.
Except that the main ingredient - rice flour - is also of EU origin.
J.-C. Moschetti / Rea
Another tip is to refer to the ancestral know-how of a family business that is passed down from generation to generation.
In the collective imagination, it is the guarantee of having a traditional product from home.
In theory at least.
Take Besacier honey, “a know-how since 1905”, can we read on the label.
On its website, the company claims to buy and promote quality French honeys.
This is definitely not the case with its organic mountain honey harvested in Mexico, found in a supermarket.
And what about the Tramier company, born in the south of France in 1863 and known for its oils and olives?
The brand was bought by a Spanish group keen to strengthen its openness to the Mediterranean region ... The black olives spotted in a supermarket and marketed under its brand come from Morocco or Spain.
As for the jam maker Georges Georgelin who “makes in France”, in the old way, jams “cooked in a cauldron”, it awakens the taste buds, that's for sure.
And yet, the producer may well work in the purest respect for tradition, we can very well fall, like us, on mashed apples harvested in the EU.
Presumably in Poland, which has become the second largest apple producer in the world.
In large print, the origin ... of a single ingredient
Everything is good to give an industrial product a local touch.
Retailers and manufacturers compete in imagination to exploit the vein of the land to the tune.
It suffices to invoke the richness of a soil, the variety of a climate, a local tradition, and voila.
When you spot "the authentic Castelnaudary cassoulet since 1964" from the La Belle Chaurienne brand, in a limited edition, you think you have hit the jackpot.
Except that grilled Toulouse sausages, just like other pork meats, are also of EU origin.
And what about the Norman shortbread with apples from Reflets de France, Carrefour's premium brand focused on the terroir?
They are made, of course, with Isigny PDO cream but also with apple cubes made in Belgium and butter made with EU-origin milk.
Eat well newsletter
A newsletter that will delight you!
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
More subtle still: the absence of symmetry in the indication of origin.
The trick here is to ostensibly claim on the front of the package the French origin of an ingredient and to carefully hide on the back the less avowed origin of another raw material.
We stumbled across the shelves of the Lidl brand, on real beef and mutton merguez L'Étal du Boucher which were eye-catching.
As indicated by a sticker in tricolor colors stuck in a prominent place, the beef is of French origin.
What is less known - but for that you have to read the list of ingredients on the back of the package - is that mutton comes from "EU or outside the EU" ... A real lottery that questions on food traceability.
Finally, there are all the products where manufacturers are not required to indicate the origin of the ingredients.
There, it gets complicated.
When it comes from France, the industrialists do not hesitate to say it.
Take the buckwheat pancakes.
When they are made with buckwheat flour produced in France, brands use tons of it to let people know when nothing obliges them to do so.
To be more credible, some add Guérande salt or, better, the label “produced in Brittany”.
But when nothing is indicated?
We unearthed black wheat egg-ham-cheese pancakes from the Sodebo brand, a “French company” it says on the packaging, with three small touches of blue white red.
We are reassured ... Except that a simple phone call to customer service tells us that buckwheat flour actually comes from the EU, in other words Eastern Europe, one of the two major producers of buckwheat in the world with China.
As for the ham, it also comes from a (mysterious) EU country ... All these maneuvers would not be so serious if they did not mislead the consumer.
A European directive on the origin of products
That said, let's be honest: things are progressing slowly.
The effects of the #BalanceTonOrigine campaign launched almost two years ago by the Think Tank AgriAgro des Echos, which aims to encourage manufacturers and retailers to clearly display the origin of their raw materials, whatever it is and even if the law does not compel them to do so, begins to produce its effects.
In charge, Olivier Dauvers, a specialist in mass distribution.
He welcomes this: “Some brands are starting to play cards on the table and no longer hesitate to clearly display the origin of the ingredients, including when the honey comes from Ukraine, the chestnuts from Albania or the pork. from Germany.
"
The application since April 2020 of a new European directive on the indication of the origin of primary ingredients, will also make it possible to protect the consumer a little more from possible deceptions on the origin of food.
The next step ?
Do away with the terms “EU origin” or “outside the EU”, and clearly name the countries of supply.
Some brands like E. Leclerc, Intermarché and Lidl have announced that they want to tackle it.
It would certainly be a step towards greater transparency of information.
And the end of a form of hypocrisy that has lasted too long.
READ ALSO>
Homemade or industrial?
How to spot the right croissants at the bakery