(Paris) The objective is unprecedented: 80% of the food that will be served at the 2024 Olympic Games is intended to be of French origin, but the step is high in a country which imports fries, shrimp and a good part of its food.
From the canteen serving the 15,000 athletes of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to the snack bars in the stadiums, all restaurateurs are supposed to compose menus with foods 80% of French origin (and even 100% for the meat).
Origin, quality labels, revegetation… In the “Paris 2024 catering vision” “ambitious” and “attainable” commitments are defined for “sustainable catering services”.
The Games organizing committee thus hopes to initiate “a work of slightly deeper transformation of event catering, which will remain a legacy” after the Olympic (July 26-August 11) and Paralympic (August 28-September 8) competitions. , explained to AFP the sustainable food project manager, Grégoire Béchu.
Beyond questions of price, which often push restaurateurs to source from abroad, the locavore objective nevertheless comes up against the limits of the French food system.
France may have the largest agricultural area in the European Union, generally high yields in its temperate climate and varied production, from northern potatoes to southern apricots, but it does not produce basmati rice or cocoa, salmon, oranges, mangoes… so many foods that athletes around the world expect to find at their table.
A premium partner of Paris 2024, Carrefour is responsible for supplying the Olympic Village with fresh produce, rice and pasta. The shrimp, for example, will come by boat “from South America, Central America or Asia because there is no farming in France,” the group told AFP.
“Where do your fries come from?” »
According to the organizers, the 20% of imported products must correspond “to the specific needs of foreign audiences” and be “essential products not available on French territory”.
But buying French for everything else is not so simple…
A government report in March noted “worrying areas of fragility”, because “France is generally an exporter of raw products and an importer of processed products”.
France is thus “the leading European producer and exporter of cereals (notably wheat, corn), but a net importer of flour, pasta and semolina”.
A major producer of potatoes, the country exports them to re-import them massively in the form of chips or fries. “Of the two million tonnes of potatoes consumed in France in the form of finished products (fries, chips, mash), more than 50% come from neighboring countries (Belgium and the Netherlands)”, according to a 2021 parliamentary report .
So many pitfalls which were not necessarily identified during the drafting of the “vision” of Paris 2024, published in July 2022.
“These are things you discover by doing,” Philipp Würz, responsible for food, cleaning and waste management at the organizing committee, told AFP.
However, “we don’t have too much concern for the pasta” and “we have always told the dealers to favor chips that are made in France”. Mr. Würz also plans to ask them “where do your fries come from?” »
A product manufactured in a French factory, even if it includes imported ingredients, will be considered French.
As for the falafels from Nestlé’s plant-based subsidiary, Garden Gourmet, “official supporter” of the Games, they will not be able to contribute to the objective, the company manufacturing its products in the Czech Republic and Serbia.
The organizing committee will draw up a report after the Games based on the reports from the restaurateurs.
“We can’t be present at every truck delivery, but we have the right to demand delivery notes, so we have something to put pressure on them. […] It’s not just declarative,” assures Philipp Würz, “rather optimistic” about keeping the commitment concerning the French origin.
The manager sometimes “suggested products” to the companies which won the calls for tenders, not all French: his German compatriots from Mahavi, selected on the sports shooting site of Châteauroux (central France), are thus asked to serve the local lens.