Is this the end of curvy croissants?
Tesco scraps them in favour of straight variety
IT IS a move that will likely horrify pastry chefs across France.
Tesco is saying au revoir to traditional curved croissants and will only produce straight ones from today – even though the pastry’s name itself means ‘crescent’ in French.
The supermarket said that demand for the curved variety has dropped in recent years and that the straight ones are much easier to spread with jam or layer up with other toppings.
And while the original shape has been rolled out by patisseries for centuries, Tesco customers said in surveys that they think straight ones are more sophisticated. They also said they were better in quality, despite having the same ingredients and being made in the same way.
But the move was ridiculed online yesterday. Some Twitter users questioned whether it was an ‘early April Fools’ joke’, while one wrote: ‘Sometimes I’m embarrassed to be British.’
Others joked that it may have been designed to coincide with David Cameron’s EU renegotiation talks in Brussels.
One quipped: ‘UK moves further away from Europe: Tesco stop selling curved croissants in favour of straight ones.’
Another said: ‘Tesco makes a stand against treacherous curved foreign pastries.’
The decision affects the one million own-label croissants sold by the supermarket each week. Tesco also sells a small number of branded croissants, which will continue to be crescent shaped.
Tesco’s croissant buyer Harry Jones said: ‘After demand for crescent shaped croissants started falling, we spoke to our customers and nearly 75 per cent of them told us that they preferred straight ones.
‘At the heart of the move away from curved croissants is the spreadability factor. The majority of shoppers find it easier to spread jam, or their preferred filling, on a straighter shape with a single sweeping motion.
‘ With the crescent shaped croissants, it’s more fiddly and most people can take up to three attempts to achieve perfect coverage, which increases the potential for accidents involving sticky fingers and tables.’
While very much a French staple, it is thought croissants were first created in Austria to celebrate the defeat of the Turkish army after the siege of Vienna in 1683. They were called kipferl, which means ‘crescent’ in German, and the shape supposedly reflects the crescent emblem on the Turkish flag.
It is said that the pastry was introduced to France in around 1838 when an Austrian artillery officer set up a Viennese bakery in Paris selling kipferl, among other breads.
This inspired imitations across the country and they became extremely popular in France – and later across the world.
Although they only reached British supermarkets around 25 years ago, croissants have become a breakfast favourite here.
Some 155 million croissants were served outside the home last year, a rise of 21 per cent compared to the previous year, according to market analysts.
Croissants are made by layering yeast dough with butter, which is rolled and folded several times before being shaped.