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FOOD AND DRINK

‘Confident for Christmas’ – How France plans to tackle mustard shortages

France's favourite condiment, Dijon mustard, is hard to find these days, with signs on supermarket shelves warning the lucky few who spot jars that they can only take one home.

'Confident for Christmas' - How France plans to tackle mustard shortages
Mustard has been in short supply in France in 2022. Photo by JEFF PACHOUD / AFP

A heatwave across the ocean in Canada, the world’s top mustard seed producer, is to blame for the drastic shortage that has dragged on for months in France.

Canada supplies around 80 percent of the mustard seeds used by French makers of the spicy condiment, the rest coming mostly from Burgundy, the region that surrounds Dijon.

But a drought slashed the Canadian harvest by half in 2021.

Now French mustard makers are aiming to boost production at home in Burgundy.

“It’s very important to increase that share so we can face weather risks that differ from one country to the other,” Luc Vandermaesen, president of the Burgundy Mustard Association, an industry group, told AFP.

“We can’t put all our eggs in one basket,” said Vandermaesen, who is also the chief executive of France’s third biggest mustard maker, Reine de Dijon (Queen of Dijon).

The Dijon region has been famous for its mustard seeds since the Middle Ages, but production has been decimated by pests as chemicals used to kill them have been banned.

Output was divided by three between 2017 and 2021, falling from 12,000 tonnes to 4,000 tonnes.

In June, local producers were urged to more than double the area planted with mustard seeds to 10,000 hectares.

“The Canadian problems revived the importance of the Burgundy sector,” said Fabrice Genin, president of the Association of Mustard Seeds Producers of Burgundy.

As an incentive, mustard makers agreed to pay €2,000 per tonne for Burgundy seeds in 2023, up from €1,300 last year and more than double what they paid in 2021.

The appeal appears to have worked, with 10,000 hectares planned for mustard seeds, said Jerome Gervais, a mustard expert at the chamber of agriculture in Burgundy’s Cote d’Or department.

The number of seed producers jumped from 160 to more than 500, he added.

“It’s more than hoped,” Gervais said.

Francois Detain, a farmer in Agencourt, gave up mustard seed production in 2019 after his fields were wrecked by a dry spring and an insect infestation.

But the price offered for mustard seeds allowed him to bring them back, even though Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made fertilisers more expensive.

A drop in the prices of grains and oilseeds has also made mustard seeds more attractive.

“It’s sort of a revenge for us to be able to replant a local crop,” Detain said.

Shipping costs – which have soared due to supply chain bottlenecks since Covid pandemic lockdowns were lifted – have also given an edge to Burgundy seeds over those from Canada.

By next year, Burgundy should be producing 15,000 tonnes of mustard seeds, meeting 40 percent of the needs of mustard makers, Gervais said.

“(Store) shelves should be replenished in October,” Vandermaesen said.

“The shortage will be completely over in early 2023. We are very confident for Christmas.”

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FOOD AND DRINK

France and Switzerland locked in conflict over ‘fourth’ chocolate

A fourth chocolate - 'blond' - has been slowly making inroads into French confectionary, but has failed to win official recognition and faces competition from a pink Swiss variety.

France and Switzerland locked in conflict over 'fourth' chocolate

Blond chocolate was born from an accident.

French pastry chef Frederic Bau was demonstrating his skills at an exhibition in Japan, and left his white chocolate warming a little too long in a bain-marie… four days, to be precise.

“By chance, by magic… it became blond! This chocolate appeared with an incredible colour and smell”, recalls Bau, who is creative director for chocolatier Valrhona.

Bau immediately smelled the commercial potential of this happy blunder, but it took seven years of testing to perfect its unique aromatic qualities and consistency.

The recipe remains a secret but has been officially registered by Valrhona, and is sold under the name Dulcey since 2012.

However, the basic chemistry is well-understood. It is the “Maillard reaction”, a sequence of chemical reactions between amino acids and reducing sugars, causing browning and aromas that are close to toasting.

Blond chocolate has the milky fattiness of white chocolate but is much less sweet, with a soft caramel flavour and an aftertaste of roasted coffee.

French pastry chefs tend to snub white chocolate, associating it with the big slabs they gobbled as children.

But blond opens up new possibilities.

“It’s very different from other chocolates. It gives a very biscuity, very delicious taste,” Nice-based pastry chef Philippe Tayac, who combines it with hazelnuts for a tartlet, told AFP.

Bau combines it as a pure fondant dessert with freshly roasted apples and a Tahitian vanilla cream, and he also recommends “breaking it up” with more distinct fruity combinations, such as citrus or red fruit.

Despite efforts, Valrhona has not managed to convince French lawmakers to reopen its legal definitions.

So blond remains formally just another type of white chocolate, which was the last to be legally recognised – after dark and milk chocolate – after its invention in the 1930s by Switzerland’s Nestlé.

And France’s Alpine neighbours are not waiting to be beaten to the punch on a fourth variety.

Valrhona’s key competitor in the world of professional-grade chocolate, Swiss giant Barry Callebaut, launched a marketing campaign in 2017 for its own fourth type: this one bright pink and derived from Ruby cocoa beans grown in Ecuador, Brazil and Ivory Coast.

Barry Callebaut calls its Ruby chocolate “the biggest innovation in chocolate in 80 years”.

The company was diplomatic when asked about the rivalry by AFP, saying in a statement: “The best chocolate in the world is the one that gives you a moment of indulgence – no matter where it was produced and no matter the colour.”

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