"decline" news and stories

The people of France are eating less bread than they did in decades past, according to a recent Reuters story. At the turn of the century, the average French person consumed a little more than a pound of bread per day. That figure is now down to a little over five ounces of bread per day, less than the average bread consumption for people from Germany and Italy. Still, the decline seems to have steadied, with some French bakeries bolstering their sales with loaves made of more traditional ingredients. Clotilde over at Chocolate and Zucchini posted about these "baguettes de tradition" a few weeks ago.

According to today's New York Times and Beverage Digest, the number of cases of soda sold in the U.S. has declined for the first time in 20 years. Soda sales for 2005 totaled up at 10.2 billion cases, that's .7 percent less than the year before. With the negative reputation that sweet soft drinks are now receiving from health experts and many public schools, it's little wonder that consumers are beginning to favor bottled water, sports drinks and other non-carbonated options. One industry expert cited in the NYT also attributed the shift to consumers who want more variety and easily find it in the ever-growing selection of bottled teas, fruit drinks and enegery drinks.