Mon dieu! French fall for frozen fries in frite-ning trend: ‘Young generations no longer peel much'

Yahoo

14-02-2025

They're ready for this gelée.
Faithful French traditionalists must be feeling salty over the latest chilling culinary change in the land of confit and coq au vin, where young anti-gourmands are said to be falling hard for frozen frites.
The gauche gastronomic glow-down is part of an overall recent pivot to junk food in France — with processed potatoes rocketing so quickly in popularity, farmers are tearing out other crops and planting more spuds, The Guardian reported.
'Young generations no longer peel much,' shrugged a rep for Agristo, a frozen food manufacturer based in neighboring Belgium.
According to French media, there's lately been a 25% uptick in frozen sales.
And the frite-ning trend is only expected to continue, industry watchers say — according to an earlier report, the global frozen tater market will grow from $67.27 billion in 2023 to $89.51 billion by 2029.
In France, the change is reportedly so pronounced, farmers are buying up territory in the northern part of the country quickly enough to double the cost of land in a handful of years.
At the core of the boom is a region now known as La Vallée de la Frite — or, Valley of the Fries.
The French love of fast food isn't exactly new — the country's embrace of McDonald's, or 'McDo,' has long been an open secret, leading to more outlets of the Golden Arches than any other European country.
'An appetite for the American way of life has built in France, a big appetite,' said Xavier Expilly, president and founder of French consulting firm EXPM.
And well before the latest shift, home cooks across the country could be found prowling the aisles of Picard, a Trader Joe's-like supermarket chain — with a similar cult following — that deals almost exclusively in frozen foods.
The nosh news comes as a handful of powerful potato processors find themselves slapped with lawsuits — alleging a conspiracy to artificially hike prices.
Four companies – Lamb Weston, Canada-based McCain Foods, the J.R. Simplot Company and Cavendish Farms – currently control 97% of the market, antitrust lawsuits filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in November have alleged.
Between July 2022 and July 2024, the tater titans allegedly sent the price of frozen potato products soaring 47% by colluding to raise prices, according to court documents.
'When there are only a handful of players in the market, collusion is too appetizing for these companies to pass up,' one industry watcher said.
Representatives for the companies earlier said the suits were without merit.
'We intend to vigorously defend ourselves against them,' Marc Doucette, vice president of communications at Cavendish Farms, told The Post.