VIVESCIA AND GRANDS MOULINS DE PARIS PARIS RECEIVE AND PUT THE BAGUETTE IN THE SPOTLIGHT!
At the end of March, France's Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, announced that the baguette had been selected as a candidate for inclusion in UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) list. As part of the study of this candidacy, UNESCO ambassadors were invited to visit the Marne region, a wheat-producing area of excellence, on the occasion of the Foire de Châlons-en-Champagne.
With the collaboration of the VIVESCIA Group, its Cooperative and its milling company Grands Moulins de Paris, and Dominique Anract, President of the Confédération Nationale de la Boulangerie-Pâtisserie Française (CNBPF), who initiated the bid, a whole program has been set up to discover the baguette and all the related know-how, through all the links... from the wheat fields to the baker!
To be eligible for UNESCO ICH status, the proposed practices or know-how must be recognized as part of a community's cultural heritage, passed down from generation to generation, providing a sense of identity and continuity. As an inseparable symbol of France and an integral part of our daily lives, the baguette seems an ideal candidate!
On Tuesday September 7, the UNESCO delegation (a dozen international ambassadors, all Permanent Delegates to the Organization, including Her Excellency Véronique Roger-Lacan for France) was received by the VIVESCIA Group - the Cooperative and its milling company, Grands Moulins de Paris. "It's an honor to make our contribution to the formidable ambition of making the baguette part of UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage. It's also recognition for all the men and women who, in this region, cultivate excellence, from wheat sowing to baguette. Know-how, passion, transmission and taste - that's what the French baguette is all about, and it's unique!" enthuses Christoph Büren, President of the VIVESCIA cooperative group.
This morning, the aim was to show the UNESCO delegation the full range of expertise that makes baguettes such a unique product, through meetings and exchanges with all the players in the industry, as close as possible to the local area. After watching baguettes being made and enjoying a tasting session at Nabil Sbai's "La Case à Pain" bakery in Reims, the delegation visited the mill in Reims to discover the expertise of the century-old miller Grands Moulins de Paris. At the end of the morning, the delegation visited the "VIVESCIA Village" at the Foire de Châlons-en-Champagne (France's2nd largest agricultural fair), to meet farmers from the VIVESCIA Cooperative, which today brings together 10,500 farmers.
" While baguettes require very few ingredients to make, it's the selection of these raw materials and the know-how of a group of passionate men and women that make them a product of excellence ", emphasizes Pierre Garcia, Managing Director of Grands Moulins de Paris. " We are proud to be part of this human chain, and to be able to contribute every day to the promotion and transmission of this emblem of our French heritage, which is the envy of people the world over, whether with our customers or with the Paris Bakery and Patisserie School ".
A number of personalities were also on hand to support the bid, including Guillaume Gomez, the Head of State's personal representative in promoting French gastronomy in France and around the world.
If patience is needed by the baker to work his dough, by the miller to select and grind the grain, and by the farmer to see his crop grow and harvest, it will also be needed to await UNESCO's final decision, due in autumn 2022.
