Food Service Vision, leader in economic intelligence in the catering industry, has just published a new edition of its “Revue Boulangerie-Pâtisserie”, which offers a deep dive into a particularly active and diverse out-of-home consumption sector, and which remains the leading local business for the French.
Previous editions of the Review had highlighted the high growth rates of bakery and pastry making in the post-Covid period.. The sector of activity had benefited in particular from the wave of teleworking and the destructuring of the lunch break. Since 2024, the situation has changed and the bakery is now looking for new growth drivers, while transforming from the inside with the rise in power of the chains. 32 597 : this is the number of bakery and pastry points of sale in France in 2025, down for the second consecutive year. A major fact, because growth had always been there until then. Nevertheless, the bakery remains the leading local business in the country with, on average, one point of sale for 2,000 inhabitants. The Food Service Vision study reveals a less flourishing situation in this sector than during the years 2021-2023. In 2025, the turnover of the bakery and pastry shop amounted to 16,2 billion euros, growing by 2% compared to 2024, which is far from the rates observed in 2021 (20 %), 2022 (9 %) or 2023 (5 %). If bread remains the most purchased product, it now only represents 35% of purchasing occasions compared to pastries (20 %), snack products (16 %), drinks (13 %) and pastries (13 %).
Borrowing from fast food codes
This thwarted growth dynamic finds its origin in both a drop in the attendance rate at points of sale, the strong arrival of supermarkets in this sector and increased competition at different times of consumption, starting with breakfast which represents 76% of purchasing occasions in a bakery and pastry shop. The sector is therefore obliged to find new growth drivers., by taking advantage of consumers' taste for savory or sweet breaks throughout the day and by gradually investing in the catering sector. The trend revealed by Food Service Vision is that of an expansion of snacking assortments, especially in salty products, vegetarian recipes, les viennoiseries salées. But the offer is also expanding to hot dishes, a format « nomad » (fond of, hot dogs, burgers…), as well as in “traditional restaurant” format (forest mince, salmon gratin, risotto au chorizo, dish of the day…). An approach accompanied by more diversified and unique choices of cold drinks, going as far as certain alcoholic drinks. We are also seeing the emergence of “brunch” concepts within several chains..
The economic weight of chains
The configuration of points of sale is also changing, with the creation of “places of life and conviviality”, named thus by certain players in the sector, and in which it is possible to organize events, cooking workshops or children’s snacks. But the major trend observed in recent years in the bakery and pastry sector, and which is accentuated, is the rise of the channels. There are now 84 of them, totaling 3,350 points of sale, which remains a very small minority compared to the 29,247 independent points of sale. But where the traditional bakery is losing stores, the chains are gaining and in 2025 will achieve an overall turnover of 3,8 billion euros, growing by 8% compared to 2024. The chains display very diverse economic weights (see table below), but achieve better performance on average than the independent bakery, with a turnover per point of sale of 1,14 million euros, up 3% compared to 2024 while the independent bakery shows more contrasting realities. If the bakery and pastry shop is able to show an overall increase in its turnover of 2% in 2025, it’s the channels that give it the impetus.
The top 10 bakery and pastry brands
1- Marie Blachère
2- 2- Paul
3- 3- Ange
4- 4- Leaflet
5-Louise Bakery
5- La Panetière
6- 7- Eric Kayser
7- Sophie Lebreuilly
8- 9- Poulaillon
9- 10- The Crumb of Bread
The concentration of points of sale
The distribution of bakeries and pastry shops in the different territories is not homogeneous. In a city, Île-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, New Aquitaine and Occitanie concentrate half of the sales points in France. While Parisians benefit from one bakery for 1,351 inhabitants, the inhabitants of Gironde must make do with one point of sale for 2,357 inhabitants and those in the North with one bakery for 2,325 residents.. As for her, Reunion Island has more than 350 bakeries and pastry shops for a population of 890,000 inhabitants..
