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| City Pan Dispenser |
We are in La France and therefore there are plenty of rules and regulations surrounding the humble baguette. For example, a baguette, can only, by law, contain flour, yeast, salt and water. Hence it must be eaten fresh and French people will go to great lengths to get their bread as fresh as possible, turning their nose up at bread that has been sitting in the shop for a mere few hours.
And so , the news this week that a discount bakery in Nimes was selling day old bread drew gasps of disbelief from the fussy French. Selling yesterday's bread at half price, the bakery is doing a roaring trade in a town where unemployment is high and many are on the breadline ( pardon the pun!)
Another ridiculous law in France means that bakeries must close one day a week. So, Phil's, our local bakery, which also sells coffee, pizzas, snacks etc and is open 7 days a week, cannot sell bread one day a week. Our 'huit à huit' is the same .. sorry ma chérie, pas du pain des mardis... WTF! Have they ever heard of rotas??
The bakeries, already competing with the likes of Lidl, selling their bread for peanuts ( see here) risk losing their clientele if they go somewhere else on their day off and there has been much heated debate about the law.
Two bakeries in our department, one in Ille sur Tete and another in St Laurent de la Salanque have come up with a solution, a loophole in the law... Bread dispensing machines! The dispenser "City Pan" can hold up to 60 baguettes and keeps them fresh by controlling the temperature and the humidity inside the apparatus.
"Also a perfect solution for small rural villages where the bakery vans don't deliver anymore" goes the distributor of the City Pan machines. You can buy the machines on an option over 24, 48 or 60 months...At the moment, the machine only dispenses baguettes, but there are plans for croissants, pastries and other goodies..
Let them eat ... fresh bread from dispensing machines ...what is the world coming to?!!
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