all cooks claim it today, to choose their products

Short circuit, local chefs, local products, the slogan is everywhere in the press, on social networks, on store shelves. With the climate transition, proximity has become more than ever a necessity in catering.

Local cuisine has almost become a trivialized argument, taken up under different terminologies (short-circuit or locavores) and in multiple areas: communication (from chefs or producers) or marketing (from restaurants or distributors). Does this mean that the word is overused?

Thierry Marx is not far from thinking so: “The word is widely used and does not always reflect the reality of an essential organization. Quite honestly, in my professional environment, a real short circuit requires years of work before becoming a reality; it took me 10 years to building a truly short circuit, which benefits the farmer, which pays the logistician and which satisfies the guest. It’s very complicated.”

Associations like Bleu-Blanc-Cœur enable partnerships between producers, transporters and restaurateurs. A good tour is practiced with full trucks, over the entire circuit, in order to further reduce the carbon cost of the products. All of this is essential, in light of the environmental transition, and requires an extremely solid organization.

An example with Alessandra Montagne. This chef from Brazil is based in Paris, at the Nosso restaurant. With the challenge for her, in such an urbanized megacity, of working mainly with plants:

“Yes, local plants! I work with urban farms around Paris, and with two brothers passionate about gastronomy (Biovore company) who tour organic farms to collect fruits and vegetables. It’s a cuisine that we love: proximity and season!”

For Thierry Marx, this testimony is the voice of common sense: “This reminds me of the speech of my elders Alain Chapel, Jacques Maximin, Michel Bras, Jean Bardet and others. Afterwards, of course, we have to organize it. We at the Eiffel Tower, we go 200 km maximum to our products.” And to add that the carbon impact is very strong, for example, on similar products, such as dairy products which we need to collect very regularly with many trucks on the roads.