French chef takes on country’s rise in junk food

The three billion-euro VAT fiscal gift, whose aim was to help restaurants drop
prices and take on more, higher-paid and qualified staff, has only seen menu
prices fall by one per cent, while workers have only taken a 10 per cent
cut, he claims.

“(Big food groups) have gobbled up the little independent restaurants to
end up serving uniform food, produced externally in a laboratory,” says
Mr Denamur, who owns five successful restaurants in Paris’s trendy Marais
district.

Low wages, insufficient training and meal preparation times have led to
restaurants increasingly relying on tinned or frozen produce leaving
customers totally in the dark about its origins, the documentary contends.

“Malbouffe” has led to rising obesity in France, he says, backing up
his claims with nutrionists.

The documentary backs Fernand Siré, an MP from Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party, who has
tried to get parliament to pass a law obliging restaurants to say whether
their food uses fresh ingredients and is made in situ.

According to Rue89 magazine, lobbyists had the bill fatally watered down,
arguing it would torpedo “France’s attractiveness, the reputation of
our cuisine”.

Mr Denamur argues for the introduction of two labels, “cuisine maison”
for home-made fare and “industrial food”.

Bertrand Simon, a cook who runs the hit website Chef Simon, welcomed the film
at a right time “our profession is falling into the hands of
multinationals”.

But reviews have been mixed. Télérama magazine wrote the film “serves
its cause but not cinema”.

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