Struggling frog farmers

French restaurants jump to meet rising meat demands

Pierrelatte: Every year, the French consume some 4,000 tonnes of frogs’ legs — the equivalent of 40 blue whales. But nearly all the amphibian limbs that land on French plates come from abroad, since wild harvesting of the protected creatures is all but banned and their cultivation strictly controlled. One of France’s handful of frog farmers, Patrice Francois, provides “cuisses de grenouille” to the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants and neighbourhood bistros alike.

Yet the 100,000 animals being raised at his greenhouses in Pierrelatte in southeast France hardly make a dent in demand for a delicacy that helped earn the French the nickname “frogs,” at least in the English-speaking world. “Raising frogs is hard!” Francois told AFP amid a deafening chorus of croaks coming from dozens of ponds teeming with marsh frogs, his farm’s speciality. “It is starting to work out, but I am not yet making a living from it,” said the 56-year-old, who started France’s first frog farm ten years ago.

To make ends meet, he also runs a fishmonger’s in Roanne, around 230 kilometres (140 miles) north. From the incubation of eggs through raising the tadpoles and fattening up the adults, it takes about a year to produce a frog weighing 50 to 100 grammes (1.7-3.5 ounces), each yielding two hind legs much smaller than chicken thighs.

“We control the entire production chain, from breeding to slaughter after anaesthesia by cold, then butchery and shipping,” Francois said. Among Francois’s top clients is the storied two-Michelin-star restaurant Bocuse, near Lyon in eastern France, which boasts frogs’ legs on its autumn menu. Chef Gilles Reinhardt said the restaurant long had no choice but to rely on imports.

“But nothing beats these ultra-fresh French frogs. The clients love them!” he told AFP. “The meat is much more delicate, the frogs fleshier and firmer… while still tender,” he said. “We are selling them all, despite the context of Covid and the dearth of foreign clients,” Reinhardt said.