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An endless stream of croissants rolls down the conveyor at the Bridor factory, one of the largest commercial bakeries in Europe, located in Servon-sur-Vilaine, Brittany. Even the famously fussy French, some 75 percent of whom buy freshly baked bread from their local boulangerie every day, have accepted “industrial” croissants, which are shipped frozen to restaurants, hotels, and smaller bakeries and then baked on-site. The flaky, factory-made pastries now make up 70 to 80 percent of the market and sell for up to 75 percent less than croissants lovingly rolled by a baker’s hand. But France’s traditional bakers say they can taste the difference and are doing their best to buck the trend. “We have to remain artisan bakers,” one Parisian boulangerie owner told an NPR reporter in 2014. “If not, what’s the point of doing this job at all?”

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An endless stream of croissants rolls down the conveyor at the Bridor factory, one of the largest commercial bakeries in Europe, located in Servon-sur-Vilaine, Brittany. Even the famously fussy French, some 75 percent of whom buy freshly baked bread from their local boulangerie every day, have accepted “industrial” croissants, which are shipped frozen to restaurants, hotels, and smaller bakeries and then baked on-site. The flaky, factory-made pastries now make up 70 to 80 percent of the market and sell for up to 75 percent less than croissants lovingly rolled by a baker’s hand. But France’s traditional bakers say they can taste the difference and are doing their best to buck the trend. “We have to remain artisan bakers,” one Parisian boulangerie owner told an NPR reporter in 2014. “If not, what’s the point of doing this job at all?”

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