© 2002, 2014 Peter Hertzmann. All rights reserved.
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I suspect that my first trip to Paris was similar to those of other foreign visitors. During my week of walking around the city I managed to stumble into my share of food vendors selling their wares along the streets. How exciting it was to see and smell a wide selection of cheeses offered by the fromager; to see and wonder about the many fresh cuts of meat or the poultry with its feathers still attached that the boucher had on display; and to smell and taste the marvelous fresh-baked breads presented by the boulanger. Just walking along the rues commerçantes with their indoor/outdoor stores in the afternoon exposed my senses a greater variety of food than they had ever experienced before. And the ecstasy of stumbling upon one of Paris’s many roving street markets — marchés volants — was almost more than I could bear. As my first week in France bore on, my awareness that I was experiencing something truly unique began to grow.
By the time I made my second trip to Paris I knew that I had to do more than just walk through the markets of Paris — I had to become a consumer. My wife and I rented an apartment for a week and set out to experience the French shopping experience. We arrived in Paris on a Sunday afternoon. Our apartment was in the eleventh arrondissement on Boulevard Richard Lenoir. As luck would have it, we were almost directly across from the public market that was set up on the boulevard on Sunday mornings. When we got to the market we realized that they were about to close so while I gathered the ingredients for salade des foies de lapin tiedes (warm rabbit liver salad), my wife headed towards a fromager and the bewildering task of picking one or two gems from a field of precious stones.
Later that afternoon we were faced with a different reality, most stores in France are closed on Sundays, and it turned out that our apartment was furnished without toilet paper! It was now time for us to explore Paris’s version of convenience stores. Throughout Paris, and many of the other larger towns of France, are small stores that stay open later each day than the mainstream stores and usually open on the days the other stores are closed. Sometimes referred to as marchés d’Arab since many of the owners are of middle-eastern origin, these French convenience stores specialize in providing products to meet one’s last-minute needs — a bottle of wine, a small jar of mustard, a few pieces of fresh fruit, and of course, a roll of toilet paper.
For the traveler to Paris, it is easy to think that typical Parisians do all their shopping along the rues commerçantes or at the marchés volants. In fact, one reference I found claimed that more than 60 percent shop this way, but the reference didn’t say whether this 60 percent shopped in these stores all the time or just some of the time. One government source estimates that only about 20 percent of the population nationwide shop in the country’s 50,000 traditional food outlets — defined as “a broad array of establishments from corner grocery stores, bakeshops, and neighborhood butcher shops, to open air markets, [and] to frozen and gourmet food stores.”
So where does the average French citizen shop? The formats of France’s major food retailers can be divided into five groups:
Hyper-marchés and super-marchés: large stores that sell a wide variety of food and non‑food items. Typical hyper-marchés and super-marchés house individual departments that sell packaged food; prepared foods; fresh seafood, meat, and poultry; and fresh-baked goods. Many also include adjoining gas stations. The principal difference between the two stores is size. Hyper-marchés have a minimum floor space of 25,000 square feet whereas super-marchés range in size from 4,000 to 25,000 square feet. Because of their size, hyper-marchés tend to be located on the outskirts of towns where land is less expensive and larger plots are available. Conversely, super-marchés are usually found close to the center of town. As of 2001, there are about 6,800 of these stores in France.
City center/department stores: generally a single floor or portion of floor in a store that also sells clothing, housewares, appliances, sundries, etc. Although the gourmet grocery stores of Le Bon Marché, Galleries Lafayette, and Au Printemps in Paris and other large cities may be the most famous, the largest department store chain selling food is Monoprix. In the basement of the Monoprix on Rue St. Antoine near Place Bastille in Paris, we found a market as compete the typical super-marchés elsewhere in France. Throughout France there are about 22,200 of these types of stores.
Convenience stores, gas-marts and kiosks: these stores comprise a surprisingly small portion — less than 2,000 outlets — of the French retail food business. About three‑fourths of these are convenience stores. As described above, convenience stores have a much smaller selection of smaller-sized products than a full-fledged market. (But when you need a roll of toilet paper on a Sunday afternoon...)
Traditional outlets: these stores include the local boulangeries, patisseries, fromageries, boucheries, and charcuteries that dot the country plus once- or twice-weekly open-air markets and specialty gourmet shops. Although these 50,000 plus stores represent more than half the food retailers in France, they only account for about 20 percent of the total sales — a value that appears to be reducing a bit each year.
Driving through the French countryside, I’ve gotten used to seeing the sides of classic, old buildings “littered” with signs advertising this hyper-marché or that super-marché. When approaching a town there’ll be signs announcing the names and locations with respect to one’s current location. The largest number of signs seems to be for Intermarché, the largest super-marché chain with 1653 stores that represent 15 percent market share. Leclerc and Carrefour are the largest hyper-marché chains with 397 and 227 stores and 19 and 18 percent market share, respectively, in 2000. When I’m traveling in France and preparing to make my purchases to bring home, I head for the nearest Leclerc or Intermarché — the variety of product offered is large and the prices very competitive.
Besides selling a broad range of food, the hyper-marchés and some of the larger super-marchés offer a variety of other services such as dry-cleaning, insurance, travel arrangements, beauty salons, coffee bars, bistros, film developing, concert tickets, and catering. Other products offered include clothing, fuel, toys, books, and compact discs plus other items. A number of the companies also have freestanding large-sized outlets that specialize in hardware and home-building supplies, furniture, and audio/visual equipment.
The growth trend for super-marchés and hyper-marchés is positive while the overall number of small specialized food retailers is diminishing in France. In some areas it may still be practical to visit a number of stores to complete one’s shopping duties, but the convenience of a large store that sells a wide variety of food is very tempting to the busy shopper. The economy of scale provided by the larger stores tends to yield lower prices to the consumer, making it difficult for the smaller stores to compete. The trend may be reversing with some smaller outlets benefiting from a recent law that bans the construction of new supermarkets.
Just as most consumers are now making the majority of their purchases at super-marchés and hyper-marchés, chefs are now obtaining a significant portion of their supplies from a hyper-marché instead of individual suppliers. With about 75 branches throughout France, Metro, a hyper-marché for professionals only, has succeeded in capturing a major portion of restaurant business for both food and non-food supplies.
The average Metro store is about 42,000 square feet in size. Each is divided into departments reminiscent of the traditional French market arrangement: vegetables, seafood, cheese, meats, wine, etc. Like non-commercial hyper-marchés, each Metro also sells non-food items. In Metro’s case it’s dry goods, cleaning supplies, general restaurant supplies, small appliances, large appliances (by special order), and even insurance. In order to purchase from Metro, the buyer needs to obtain a “Metro Card” by providing evidence he or she is truly a professional reseller of food, not just a chef or cook working for an employer.
Before entering a Metro, the buyer grabs a large cart or two by the entrance. Usually, the buyer will be entering the store with his own insulated boxes needed for transporting refrigerated items back to his restaurant. Metro is strictly self-serve, although there are workers in each department to answer questions and provide advice. At the checkout stand, the items are scanned into the computer by workers using handheld scanners attached to the computer by long, coiled cables. The buyer then proceeds to a payment desk where the computer prints out the total and a cashier imprints the buyer’s credit card — this is strictly “cash and carry.” (In France, a credit card is as good as cash!) When the transaction is completed, the buyer pushes the carts out to the parking lot and loads the purchases into his vehicle, usually a truck. It’s not uncommon seeing a buyer pushing two or three large carts piled high with goods.
Unlike the traditional suppliers that restaurants have used in the past, Metro doesn’t deliver. This may represent a lack of convenience to the chef, but the savings are significant and by going to Metro, the chef can inspect the quality of items being purchased before they show up at the door.
People find it hard to believe that quality restaurants would use a store such as Metro, but my experience at four different Michelin-starred restaurants is that these chefs make a majority of their purchases there while still purchasing certain specialty items from their traditional suppliers. Sensitive to their patron’s prejudices, quality restaurants generally use unmarked trucks when shopping at Metro. They don’t want someone saying that the quality of their food is lacking because they shop there!
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