Baguette Vending Machines in France

Baguette Vending Machines in France

On your French travels have you ever been really hungry and on reaching the local boulangerie (bakery) found it closed for their lunch break?  What the heck is that about?  They sell food right – and they are shut at lunch time!  Nothing better explains France’s love for the long lunch than this anomaly. Boulangeries close so that bakers and workers can enjoy their own lunch break, and locals plan around these midday closures.

However, there is also an answer to this age-old lunch hunger problem when the boulangerie is closed. It’s got our family and no doubt many others out of hunger – enter the baguette vending machine. True, there are vending machines that dispense fresh baguettes in France.

We have now seen them as stand-alone machines on the outskirts of tiny villages, outside of boulangerie stores or even built into the store’s wall, just like a bank’s automatic teller machine.

As we usually want more than just a baguette when we visit a French boulangerie (who can resist an éclair au chocolat, macaron, Paris-Brest or canele), we usually head in store. If closed though, the vending machines are a fabulous option.

Baguette Vending Machine in Gouarec, Brittany, France

On one of our earlier trips to the bustling wealthy town of Gouarec we parked in the narrow, cobbled lane beside the boulangerie only to find it was closed.  When about to start our car and drive off, we noticed a dapper French gentleman head to an auto dispensing baguette machine (previously unseen by us) and get his daily staple.  My son Thomas suggested we do the same, so we did, and voila – a fresh tasty baguette for our lunch.

The machine we used in Gouarec, Brittany had two baguette options, traditionnel (traditional) and blanc (white) and you pressed the button beside your preferred option after inserting coins.  After trying to figure out where the bread could come from, it came from behind the button section on the machine with the whole section tilting backwards.  A fantastic idea!

Some machines have obvious collection points while others are quite the mystery and I recommend using them if the boulangerie is shut, or if there’s an extremely lengthy queue outside the store. Have you used one of these machines and were you as confused as me as to where your baguette would be dispensed? (watch YouTube clip below)

With bread usually as warm and fresh as bought in store, we’ve used the one in Gouarec, Guingamp and in a village nearby to our home.

Baking Fresh French Bread At Home

I’ll also share with you that my favourite cookbook for baking French bread at home is ‘The French Baker’ by Jean Michel Raynaud, a French born master pâtissier.   This book has 95 tantalising sweet and savoury recipes that are easy to follow with the bread recipes always giving me good results – Book listed in my Amazon Collection ‘Favourite Cook Books‘.