French households bought an average of just over 11 kilograms of fresh carrots in 2012, according to a study by the Centre Technique Interprofessionnel des Fruits et Légumes (CTIFL), with shoppers forking out around €1 per kilo for the vegetable, €0.90 for prepacked and €1.25 for loose.
Household penetration was stable at 86 per cent, the study showed. Of the non-buying 14 per cent, 41 per cent were under the age of 24; 61 per cent were unwaged and 32 per cent lived in the countryside.
However, 80 per cent of non-carrot buyers apparently still eat them. The study discovered that 30 per cent were not the main shopper, while one in four either grew their own or were given surplus carrots by neighbours. Few expressed an active dislike of carrots per se, with such people accounting for just 18 per cent of non-carrot buyers.
Foodservice purchases of carrots stood at just over 31,000 tonnes in 2011, valued at nearly €20m. Bought according to price rather than quality, fresh carrots are frequently absent from school canteens, the report found, possibly due to the increasingly widespread lack of prepping facilities or the staff numbers to complete the work.
The study, La Consommation de Carottes en 2013, was commissioned by AOP Carrotte de France and carried out by Centre Technique Interprofessionnel des Fruits et Légumes (CTIFL).
