French cuisine is known world-wide for its finesse and has been for a long time. Here, no one talks about fast food or anything of that genre. A good dish takes time, effort and great ingredients – nothing more, nothing less. Yet where do those great ingredients come from? How can you, as a customer, be sure about what you’re eating? Well, soon those questions will be easily answered, as far as the meat goes anyway.
How, do you ask? Well, starting from March, restaurants and any other establishments serving meat will have to disclose the origin of the produce they’re serving. They’ll have to say where it came from and whether or not it has been frozen. This has already been the case for beef since 2002 but the Ministry of Agriculture has now decided to extend the measure for chicken, pork, lamb and mutton as well. Until now, only supermarkets and butcher shops had to disclose the provenance of those kinds of meat.
We’ve been working on this for a long time, so parents will finally know if the chicken their children are eating at the school canteen came from France or Ukraine or Brazil, and the same goes for restaurants.
Julien Denormandie, French minister or agriculture, told Politico
Why now, you ask? Well, it’s no secret that consumers are getting more and more interested in what they’re eating and where it came from. Especially since the rise of the pandemic, consuming locally is considered to be more important than ever. Not only is it more responsible from an ecological point of view, it’s also a game changer if we want to support local entrepreneurs and therefore the local economy.
Encouraging local choices
“We’ve been working on this for a long time, so parents will finally know if the chicken their children are eating at the school canteen came from France or Ukraine or Brazil, and the same goes for restaurants”, French minister or agriculture Julien Denormandie told Politico. At the moment, about half of the meat being served in France actually comes from outside the country and the Ministry hopes that this measure will encourage a more local consumption. When people have access to the origin of the different meats a restaurant is serving, chances are they will opt for the more local one and by doing that, restaurants themselves will be encouraged to serve local meat.
The measure will be implemented as of the first of March, so restaurant owners still have some time to adapt their menus.
