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Chestnuts, this little fruit that can be cooked in all sauces, is a staple Christmas food. The journalists of France Télévisions wanted to know more about its production and its origin.
It is the emblem of several of our regions. Plain, frozen or in jam, the chestnut remains one of the flagship products of New Year’s Eve. But where do those we taste at Christmas really come from? On the shelves, on the label of some jars, only one mention: “European Union”. In fact, in our pots, the chestnuts come mainly from southern Europe, led by Portugal, which produces six times more than France.
Over the past 60 years, faced with bad weather and disease, French production has been divided by 10. “Today, there are a lot of crops in deficit. It is the good harvest which is exceptional, suddenly we are today between 70% local supply and 30% which comes from the countries of southern Europe. “, explains Christophe Sabaton, director of the Sabaton confectionery in Aubenas (Ardèche). To fight against this competition, the Ardèche is looking to revive old abandoned chestnut groves and focus on quality, with its PDO obtained in 2014.