The French, it seems, aren't eating bread the way they used to. The average French person consumes just half a baguette a day, down from a full baguette 40 years ago.
Those statistics worry the French bakers' lobby, the Observatoire du Pain.
Bernard Vallius, who heads the group, says it used to be that people ate a sit-down lunch and dinner with family or friends every day. Now people – especially the young and those who live in cities - eat sandwiches or skip lunch altogether and snack, he says.
He calls bread is the silent pivot of every French meal. And the bread lobby has launched a campaign to make it speak up. Inspired by the California Milk Board's campaign, "Got Milk?", the Observatoire du Pain came up with the slogan, "Cou cou, tu as pris le pain?" which translates roughly as, "Hi there, did ya pick up the bread?"
The slogan is plastered on billboards and inscribed on bread bags in 130 cities around the country. "What we want to do is just to make sure that people have the reflex, going home at night, to buy the bread. That's all," says Vallius.
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