Almost no one in France will disagree with the idea that a nearby boulangerie to provide daily bread is a necessity of life—but it’s not hard to get into a disagreement over how many there are and whether the number is shrinking.
Baking and flour industry groups have publicized a number around 30,000, but according to the latest official figures from France’s national statistics agency, INSEE, there are actually 50,122 bakeries and pastry shops across the country last year, an increase of 16.
The key to the difference, apparently, is ‘oranges and apples.’ The national database lists actual storefronts, while the industry lists enterprises, and some of the enterprises are companies with multiple shops. The industry counts them as a single entity, even though each shop is baking on premises.
The trend in recent years to sell sandwiches using the bakery’s bread products has been a help to the industry, with many offering combinations of a sandwich, a drink and a sweet pastry as a take-away lunch.
However, availability of a boulangerie is not uniform. In cities such as Paris, Lyon and Marseille, it’s possible to believe there’s one every other block—and Paris city officials say that 94% of Parisians live within a 5-minute walk from one. On the other hand six out of ten of France’s 34,000+ communes have none, but many of those are tiny villages with fewer than 500 residents.
