How Gourmet Competes With the Convenience

Ian Bagley talks about the increasing popularity of the hamburger in France. 

In 2000, one in every nine sandwiches sold in France was a hamburger. Today in 2013, burgers make up more than 45% of the total number of sandwiches sold in France. Many French restaurants have added “le burger” to their menus, and burgers have even begun to outsell traditional meals in some instances. Even the baguette, a fresh-crusted, often ham and cheese filled staple in French fast food convenience, is starting to fall to the wayside in the wake of fast food giants like McDonald’s. In fact, fast food sales recently surpassed traditional sit-down restaurant meals for the first time in 2012 at a rate of 54%.

However, French restaurants may not have to worry all that much about the country’s increasing fast food consumption. French hamburgers tend to have a gourmet touch, something a patron could not pick up at a local McDonald’s, causing hamburger aficionados to enter a sit-down restaurant when they are looking for a more elegant hamburger. Many of the gourmet burgers served in French restaurants have as much a right as other more traditional entrees to be placed alongside a bottle of wine in a legendary three-hour French lunch.

The hamburgers created in French restaurants often rely on high-quality ingredients as the hooks that will keep customers hungrily coming back for more. Some restaurants use high quality-quality, rare-breed beef, but create smaller portions to keep restaurant and consumer costs down. Other restaurants combine different types of choice beef, sometimes even offering veal as a creative ground beef option. Fillings in burgers have also started to become a delectable treat, but that doesn’t just mean that chefs are creating a savory cheese pocket encased in beef. Some burger fillings can be as extravagant as breaded cod or Black Angus steak, further cementing the fact that in some burger arenas, McDonald’s just can’t compete.

For more information about the hamburgers French restaurants are creating to combat the increasing fast food intake in France please visit http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/07/travel/french-burgers-beat-baguettes/?hpt=hp_bn5.

via Ian Bagley http://ianbagley.net/how-gourmet-competes-with-the-convenience/