“Home-made” restaurant fare in France will be advertised as such by a new label.
The label, which will be mandatory, is designed to make it clear which foods have genuinely been prepared by the chef and which are pre-cooked.
The Union of Hotel Industry Professions (UHIP) says that 85% of the country’s 150,000 restaurants buy vacuum-packed and frozen food and serve them without the customer being informed.
A new “fait maison” logo shaped like a casserole dish will now appear on menus so the diner can decide.
"We want to give clear, trustworthy and easy to understand information to the consumer while giving credit to restaurants that make an effort," said Carole Delga, secretary of state in charge of consumption, saying it would preserve the "art de vivre à la française".
But the concept has not gone down well with everyone. There are arguments about what could be labelled “home-made” especially when it comes to the use of frozen items, such as vegetables.
The definition of home-made is the use of “raw ingredients” in preparing the meal at the restaurant, but already smoked, salted, frozen or deep-frozen produce and, indeed, vacuum packed items, can slip into the approved list.
Calming feathers, the president of the French association of master restaurateurs said the label was a "start" as "a frozen raw product which has undergone no modification is not the same thing as a pre-prepared frozen dish".
Restaurants serving home-made meals will have to undergo inspection starting in 2015.
