It’s as classically French as the Eiffel Tower or a black beret: the baguette is a daily staple of the delicious French diet. The countries ravenous appetite for the long loaves was previously supplied by over 30,000 bakeries all over the nation. Now with more of the population adopting the American/British habit of grabbing a quick lunchtime meal, along with cases of poor working conditions for bakers, many of those traditional bakeries are closing.
Enter Jean-Louis Hecht, a baker from Hombourg-Haut in North Eastern France. He’s opened two controversial baguette vending machines that serve his home town and Paris. According to the Telegraph, the popularity of the machines have soared; the Hombourg-Haut machine dispensing 1,400 baguettes in its first month of January and 4,500 in July. The machines operate 24 hours a day and although they would solve the issues of quick baguette availability and bad working conditions, some worry they could put the traditional boulangerie at risk.
