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Mustard shortage in France: “France without mustard is like France without wine!”

 


France is experiencing a shortage of mustard – la moutarde. Dijon mustard, to be precise. 

 

French chef Pierre Grandgirard says that “France without mustard is like France without wine.” He had to resort to asking for donations of pots of mustard from his restaurant guests or importing it from friends and retailers overseas. 

 

The shortage is, in part, due to depressing harvests of mustard seed in 2021 in France and Canada. Fortunately, this year – 2022 – the French harvests have been described as exceptionally good, and Canadian mustard seed cultivators are expecting to more than double their output this year, from 50,000 tons in 2021 to 115,000 tons, reports FRANCE 24. This increase is expected to end the mustard drought by the end of the year.

 

There are other factors too, such as climate and the war in Ukraine. France used to be a major producer of mustard seed (Brassica juncea), which is the base for Dijon mustard, but the cultivation moved to Canada, which now accounts for about 80% of the French supply. With the 2021 heatwave over Alberta and Saskatchewan, the production of mustard seed halved. The milder than usual winter also resulted in infestations of insects in the fields, reducing the harvest.  

 

Russia and Ukraine are large mustard seed producers, mainly cultivating the midler, yellow mustard seed – a variety that the French don’t typically consume.  The war in Ukraine halted that production, which meant that consumers of the mild variety turned to the Dijon mustard, increasing its demand. 

 

French residents were shocked and angered to hear the news of the shortage and resorted to desperation to get their hands on the condiment. They resorted to hoarding and breaking the rule of ‘one pot per customer’ at the supermarkets (with some customers buying up to 10 pots each). 

 

Each French person consumes, on average, one kilogram of mustard per year. Pierre Grandgirard, the owner and head-chef of the La Régate restaurant in Brittany, says he specialises in seafood platters and traditional ‘steak frites’ salad, and that people like to have mustard with their steaks. His restaurant goes through an average of 5 kilograms of mustard per month. His plea to the public in May for help in stocking his restaurant with mustard received a good response. “People called me from everywhere, from all over Europe, and offered me some mustard.” He initially received 35-40 pots of mustard which supplied him until July. 









 

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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