The Turnaround of Contemporary Food Innovation in France during the 1960s

Abstract

During the 1960s, the alimentation in France went through a period of heavy clashes between traditions that have remained and innovations that have introduced forms of modernity. Those are indeed the origin of current eating behaviors. Properly analyzed by sociologists of food, this turnaround deserves a rereading of history, looking for evidence of chronological rupture and double cause and consequence of a particularly rich area for analysis. Many new trends give rise to food practices quite different from those of previous decades. Thus, it is seen housewives want new facilities to make their purchases due to the growth of female employment and new appliances to simplify their household chores. At the same time, the “eating out” tends to increase. In general, the adjustment of agri-food industries to the demand of products more practical, better conditioned and easy to use, shows a real change. This is apparent in both the observatory’s SIAL, the hall of food innovation whose first meetings began during this decade, as the methods of sale of new distribution channels in which France is a champion with the progression of supermarkets and hypermarkets. Overall, it is a transformation of eating behaviors that operates with nuances between cities and countryside, with resistance to innovation, but still (still) in a process which prioritizes food diversity and the general reduction of the decrease in preparation time in meals.