French pastries and butter have become so popular abroad that the increased demand has led to a mini-shortage of the dairy product in French supermarkets.
The price of butter rose 60 percent in a year, reaching 6.70 euro (US$7.90) per kilogram in August, according to official data.
The increase has created problems for pastry exporters in France and fears of a shortage of Christmas delicacies such as the traditional Yule Log dessert.
French regions such as Brittany and Normandy have reportedly been hit hardest by the butter shortage, which is also linked to a drop in the European milk supply.
French National Federation of Dairy Cooperatives president Dominique Charge told French radio RTL that butter is “more and more in demand in emerging economies like China and the Middle East.”
Claude Margerin Francois, who runs a small company specialized in pastry dough in central France, told reporters she has not been able to fulfill orders from Lebanon, China and Vietnam because of the shortage.
“I’m looking for butter everywhere,” she said.
Margerin Francois, who has been buying her top-shelf labeled Poitou-Charentes butter from a local producer for 15 years, said she had to furlough eight employees because of the shortage.
She could have opted for a cheaper butter made abroad, but was not convinced by the quality, she added.
“Just by smelling it I could tell it was not good enough,” she said.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure