Artisanal bakery products retain a strong influence over sales in several European markets, but new data* from Euromonitor International finds that industrial producers are moving in by imitating traditionally-made bread.
Artisanal bread most popular in Continental Europe
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Artisanal products dominate the bread industry in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, but in the UK industrially-produced bread is the market leader. In France, artisanal products were the most popular type of bread in both volume and value terms in 1998, with respective shares of 96.8% and 94.7%. In Spain the artisanal bread market grew much faster than its industrial counterpart; between 1994-1998 Spanish artisanal bread saw both volume and value sales up 6.9% by volume and 7.0% by value.
The Market for Unpackaged/Artisanal bread in Western Europe– historic trends in US dollars
US$ million
| Country | 1994 | 1998 |
| France | 4,940.70 | 4,650.50 |
| Germany | 8,872.50 | 8,825.20 |
| Italy | 5,660.80 | 5,185.00 |
| Spain | 3,315.90 | 3,108.50 |
| United Kingdom | 831.5 | 882 |
However, Spain is the exception, and industrial produced bread is the dominant growth market in France, Germany and Italy. The enduring popularity and advantages of artisanal products have forced many industrial manufacturers to re-think strategies. As a consequence, a number of industrial bakers now supply part-baked and fresh products on a daily basis to a network of individual bakery outlets which give the impression of being artisanal in nature. This approach has negatively impacted the true artisanal sector.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataTraditional bakeries suffer as supermarkets offer distinctive products
Why British consumers chose industrially produced bread over artisanal products is due to the ubiquity of in-house supermarket bakeries and the decline in traditional bakery outlets. In addition to French baguettes and pitta bread, shelf space is being given over to Italian and special recipe breads produced by the bake-off process. Manufacturers of ethnic branded products such as Tomkins have extended whole meal solution ranges into the bread market, and Sharwood’s offers plain and flavoured naan bread to accompany home-cooked Indian meals.
Euromonitor International predicts that private label products will negatively impact on value sales and that the general trend away from spending time on family meals may reduce home consumption. Attempts to boost the market will be focused on speciality products, such as the successful range of extended shelf-life bread available in British supermarkets. Growth is predicted in the Italian market where overall bread sales are forecast to increase by 6.1% in value terms over 1998-2003 and in Spain, where volume sales are forecast to grow by 9.3% in the next five years.
Details of reports from Euromonitor International click here
