The French no longer have the heart for pâté, sausage and ham. The butchery and delicatessen sections of supermarkets are neglected and sales of these food products are plummeting. “All butchery and delicatessen products show a drop in sales of nearly 5% during the last week of October” compared to the same period in 2014, and “the impact seems of the same order of magnitude over the following two weeks, “points out the IRI firm, quoted by AFP. Nielsen, for its part, also observed a decline in sales of cold meats in French hypermarkets and supermarkets compared to 2014, with a peak in the week of November 8 (-4.9%) then a slight improvement in the week of November 15 ( -2.6%). Even foie gras, so dear to the French as the holidays approach, suffers from this disenchantment: sales have dropped drastically by 27.3%. Fans of rillette sandwiches are also sulking since sales of rillettes are down 11.7%, according to Nielsen.
This gloomy picture clearly stems from the warning issued by the World Health Organization last October: the consumption of red meat and cold meats had been classified, as “probably carcinogenic for man. ”This announcement had been relativized by the WHOa few days later, who qualified: it is not necessary to stop eating processed meat but it is simply advise consumption of these products can reduce the risk of colorectal cancer.
But this back-pedaling has obviously had no effect on the French who prefer to refrain from red meat and cold meats. It remains to be seen whether this mistrust will persist.
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