Number of Bakeries in France: 36,500 in 2026

How many bakeries? It depends on your question#

The right answer depends on your question. To size the market, use 36,500 as your reference. For an offering aimed at craft bakers, the 34,318 bakeries outside chains and franchises are the pool: this number does not tell you which ones bake their own bread or which ones can switch suppliers. Check with the operator. For a deal negotiated with a head office, the target is the 34 chains.

Three steps for anyone selling to bakeries. Call the craft baker: 94% of bakeries are not part of a chain or franchise, 65% of all bakeries list a public phone number, and public email addresses are rare (see how to build a list). Ask who chooses the supplier and whether a contract or an approved-supplier list governs the purchase. For a chain, first check whether it is franchised or company-owned: decisions sit with the franchisee or the head office (see the chains). Choose your day: among bakery listings that give opening hours, 31% close on Mondays, 73% open on Sundays, and 53% open before 7 a.m. (read on November 2, 2026). For your department: see the departments.

Why do bakery counts vary so much?#

Published bakery figures do not count the same thing. The difference starts with the unit: a business, a store, a registered location, an employer location, or an open bakery. Scope also matters: craft bakers alone, or all bakeries, including bake-off outlets. So does the year.

Take a simple example. A craft baker runs three bakeries in the same city under one company. For Insee, which counts businesses, that counts as one. For Urssaf, it counts as three locations if each employs staff. For Scalon, it counts as three bakeries. All three counts are valid; they answer different questions.

There is no single "correct official figure" that overrides the others. 41,505 answers "how many addresses are registered under the bakery code?" 28,211 answers "how many businesses did Insee count in 2023?" Our figure answers "how many bakeries can you visit, call, or approach today?"

Insee's BPE counts bread retailers, "artisan or otherwise": a broader scope than code 10.71C, and on the same scale as the 51,001 open locations in the register when bake-off outlets (10.71B) and bread retailers (47.24Z) are added.

What other sources say: the eleven counts

Source	What it counts	Number	Date
Insee, BPE (figure reported by The Local)	shops selling bakery products, "artisan or otherwise"	50,122	January 1, 2025
Register, codes 10.71C, 10.71B, and 47.24Z (Scalon recount)	open locations	51,001	September 2026
Register, code 10.71C	open locations	41,505	October 1, 2026
Gira	bakeries, excluding bake-off outlets (and 34,700 in LSA for the same year, with no explanation of scope)	41,569	2024
FranceAgriMer	bakery and pastry locations	about 42,000	2024
Scalon	operating bakeries	36,500	November 2026
Confédération nationale de la boulangerie-pâtisserie (CNBPF)	craft businesses	34,000	February 2026
Food Service Vision	outlets	32,597	2025
Insee, sector fact sheet	stores under code 10.71C	29,995	2021
Insee, Ésane	businesses under code 10.71C	28,211	2023
Urssaf (used in our calculation)	employer locations under code 10.71C	26,033	December 31, 2025

• Insee, Ésane: 28,211 bakery and bakery-pastry businesses (code 10.71C) in 2023, with €14.97 billion in revenue excluding taxes. The sector fact sheet counted 28,525 in 2021. One business can run several bakeries.
• Insee, sector fact sheet: 29,995 stores in 2021, compared with 28,855 in 2020.
• Urssaf: 26,033 employer locations under code 10.71C as of December 31, 2025 (26,148 a year earlier). Bakeries with no employees are excluded. Neighboring codes count 1,104 employers in bake-off operations (10.71B), 3,024 in pastry (10.71D), and 3,143 in bread retail (47.24Z). These 26,033 employers are the starting point for our total (see the breakdown).
• Insee, BPE: 50,122 shops as of January 1, 2025 (50,106 a year earlier), a figure reported by The Local. Insee describes the category as "shops dedicated to selling bakery products (bread, sweet baked goods, confectionery, quiches, savory tarts, etc.), artisan or otherwise, with or without pastries, and with no option to eat on site." The list of codes it uses is not published on the pages we read.
• Gira: 41,569 bakeries and bakery-pastry shops in 2024, excluding bake-off outlets (cited by the Observatoire de la franchise). LSA also cites Gira for "about 34,700 bakeries" in the same year, without stating the scope.
• FranceAgriMer: about 42,000 locations in 2024 (July 2026 study). Its 2022 study counted 39,500 in 2021: 93% craft bakeries, 7% bake-off outlets.
• CNBPF: 34,000 craft bakery and bakery-pastry businesses, with more than 200,000 employees and self-employed workers (February 24, 2026 press release).
• Food Service Vision: 32,597 outlets in 2025, down for the second year in a row (La Toque, March 1, 2026). Our total includes 3,858 more: it includes bake-off outlets, overseas territories, and bakeries registered under a foodservice code; Food Service Vision's exact scope still needs checking in its report, which we have not read.
• Industry information sites: 43,729 "bakery-pastry" locations under code 10.71C in June 2026, and 50,122 taken from the BPE. These figures are counts from the register or the BPE.
• Scalon: 36,500 operating bakeries, including bake-off outlets and chain bakeries. Differences between our figure and each source's figure reflect what is counted, rather than errors.

These rows should not be added together or averaged. Our total sits below the register (41,505) and the BPE (50,122), and above Insee's 28,211 businesses, which count something else. Scope will also change: the activity classification changes on January 1, 2027 (see the NAF code).

From the register to the total: what comes out, what goes in#

The business register lists 41,505 open locations under code 10.71C. To reach the number of operating bakeries, we need to remove locations that are no longer bakeries, then add those the code misses.

Chart data

Step	Bakeries
Registered under code 10.71C	41,505
Active bakeries under code 10.71C	31,936
Active bakeries under another code	3,765
Active listings with no linked register entry	754
Operating bakeries (total)	36,455

Where the total comes from. It starts with the 26,033 bakeries that employ staff, according to Urssaf as of December 31, 2025: they make up 71% of the total. We add bakeries with no employees that were registered as of October 1, 2026 and are still active, estimated from our check, then bakeries registered under another code and active public listings read on November 6, 2026. The headline rounds 36,455 to 36,500.

What comes out: a register entry is not an open bakery. We reviewed 120 locations, each twice. Of the 45 randomly selected locations under code 10.71C, 10 no longer house an active bakery under that operator: liquidation, deregistration, takeover by another operator (4 cases), or a closure not yet recorded. In the 4 takeovers, the new operator has its own entry under code 10.71C, which we count once. Overall, more than 1 in 5 entries falls into this category, and nearly 3 in 10 according to our less precise review alone.

What goes in: an activity code does not capture every bakery. We reviewed 20 locations whose public listing says "bakery" but whose code is different. Of 11 locations registered under a bread-related code (bake-off operations, bread retail, industrial baking, foodservice), 7 are active bakeries. Of 9 locations registered under pastry or another code, none is. Finally, 754 active bakeries have a public listing with no linked register number.

In practice: the 41,505 rows in the register and the 36,455 bakeries do not line up. A list drawn from code 10.71C alone includes addresses without a bakery and misses others.

Market terms in plain English#

Industry terms mean different things depending on who uses them. Here is how this article uses them.

The word "independent" can be confusing. Here, it says who decides: a bakery outside any chain or franchise, whose operator chooses its own suppliers. A craft baker running three shops under one company remains independent; a Marie Blachère franchisee does not, even with its own company. An independent can display a miller's label: the baker still runs the shop, but often buys flour from that miller.

Six levels for understanding the market#

The study uses six levels, from the register to the region, to distinguish what each count covers. From level 2 to level 6, shares use the same denominator: the 36,455 operating bakeries.

Level 3 answers "what kind of bakery is it?": one that makes its own bread, one that bakes dough it buys in, one that also serves food. The register code is given for reference.

The 31,936 bakeries registered under code 10.71C are those in the breakdown above; the code says what is declared, not that each one bakes its own bread. The industrial code row does not consist of factories: it is mostly chain stores registered that way, including 329 observed Marie Blachère outlets. Specialties (pastry, prepared snacks) are not a separate level: they are covered below with the submarkets.

Level 4: how many bakeries are independent of chains and franchises?#

Out of 100 operating bakeries, 94 are independent: 34,318 bakeries not part of a chain or franchise, whose operator chooses its own suppliers. The 34 chains with confirmed storefront names run an estimated 2,137 of them, a low estimate, and 2,977 when every observed outlet is counted. Among independent bakeries, 7,571 are run by an operator with several shops, under one company or one website.

Chart data

Market structure	Bakeries	Share
Independent (not part of a chain or franchise)	34,318	94.1%
Franchised chains	1,629	4.5%
Company-owned chains	233	0.6%
Chains, model unconfirmed	275	0.8%
Total	36,455	100%

The detail: how many shops each operator runs

Operator	Bakeries	Share
Independent, a single shop	26,747	73.4%
Independent, 2 to 9 shops	7,086	19.4%
Independent, 10 or more shops with no confirmed storefront name	485	1.3%
Chain with a confirmed storefront name (low estimate)	2,137	5.9%
Total	36,455	100%

The 485 bakeries of operators with 10 or more shops and no confirmed storefront name (48 operators observed) are counted as independent. Some probably belong to brands we have not confirmed as bakery chains: the 94.1% is a ceiling.

Millers' labels are not chains#

Banette (1,550 craft bakers in January 2026), Campaillette (1,000, Grands Moulins de Paris, Vivescia group), and Festival des Pains (2,000 craft bakers, 25 millers) bring together bakers who remain independent. These are millers' labels: the brand belongs to a flour supplier, while the craft baker retains ownership of the bakery. We count them as independents, not chains. For a miller, this is a sales channel. For an equipment or point-of-sale supplier, it does not provide a shared decision-maker.

Operators with several shops are mostly small: 4,197 networks of 2 or more locations bring together 13,635 observed locations, and 85.8% stay within a single department (one of France's main administrative areas). 4,163 have no shared storefront name: their locations share a website or a company. A network whose bakeries share no name, website, or company goes undetected; the number of networks is a minimum (see the method).

In practice, a bakery prospect list requires contacting each outlet individually. For more than 9 in 10 bakeries, no chain or franchise decides for the operator: the operator is the first contact, and the one to ask who chooses the supplier.

Level 5: which bakery chains are there, and who operates them?#

We identified 34 chains with confirmed storefront names. They include 2,977 observed bakeries, or 8.2% of the total, and an estimated 2,137 operating bakeries (5.9%). The true number falls between the two. Three types of chain:

• Franchise: the bakeries belong to several companies, and the chain's public page recruits franchisees. The group that owns the brand is shown when a source names it.
• Company-owned: the bakeries are mainly operated by the chain's company.
• Type unconfirmed: the public sources we read do not say whether the chain is franchised or company-owned. We assign a type only when supported by cited public evidence.

The operating model suggests whom to contact, though you should verify this: the head office for company-owned stores or each franchisee for a franchise, within the network's rules.

Why two counts for chains? Our estimate assigns each outlet the active-bakery share of its check group, measured mainly among craft bakers. Chain outlets are more often open than average, so they are undercounted. "Observed" outlets are those we found on November 6, 2026, whether open or not. "Reported outlets" are figures from the chain or the press, as of their publication date, and may include locations abroad.

Chart data

Chain	Type	Operating bakeries (estimate)
Marie Blachère	Franchise	673
Ange	Franchise	241
Paul	Franchise (Holder group)	148
La Mie Câline	Franchise	129
Louise	Company-owned	114
Sophie Lebreuilly	Company-owned	81
Feuillette	Franchise	80
Brioche Dorée	Franchise (Le Duff group)	69
La Mie de Pain	Franchise	54
La Boulangerie du Marché	Type unconfirmed	49
Total for the ten chains		1,638
24 other chains		499
Outside a chain		34,318
Total		36,455

The number of operating companies changes how you prospect. Ange has 299 observed bakeries across 279 companies: almost every bakery has its own operator, who makes purchasing decisions within the chain's rules. By contrast, Poulaillon has 57 observed bakeries across 9 companies: a central contact carries more weight there.

A public benchmark for comparison: Food Service Vision counts 84 chains and 3,350 outlets in 2025, or 10.3% of the 32,597 outlets, compared with 29,247 independents (89.7%). In our count, the 34 chains run 2,137 operating bakeries (5.9%, a low estimate) and 2,977 observed outlets, open or not; bakeries outside chains account for at most 94.1%. The gap comes from the number of chains included (84 versus 34, since we retain only confirmed bakery chains) and our low estimate of chain outlets. Food Service Vision starts with a list of chain brands and counts their outlets; we link each bakery to its company, website, and storefront name, and retain only those that are open.

Level 6: where are the bakeries? Geography#

Île-de-France has the most bakeries (6,011, or 16.5% of the total), ahead of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (4,464) and Occitanie (3,337). The share of independent bakeries, not part of a chain or franchise, varies little from one region to another: on the mainland, from 92.2% in Hauts-de-France to 95.9% in Bretagne, and 98.9% in Corse. Chains are almost absent from overseas territories (from 97.2% independent in La Réunion to 100% in Mayotte); for overseas territories, our figures are estimates that need confirmation, since we apply the national activity rate.

To compare territories, density is more useful than volume. France has 5.25 operating bakeries per 10,000 residents: 35,762 bakeries in the 100 departments for which Insee publishes the official population, with 68.1 million residents. 693 bakeries fall outside those departments (Mayotte, overseas collectivities, undisclosed municipality). Our November 2 version gave about 6 per 10,000 residents based on the 10.71C register alone; the new figure counts operating bakeries.

The best-served departments are Guadeloupe (10.6 per 10,000 residents), Lozère and Hautes-Alpes (9.2 each), Corse-du-Sud (8.1), Paris (7.7), and Cantal (7.4). The least served are Seine-et-Marne, Haute-Garonne, and Yvelines (4.1 each), Val-de-Marne (4.0), Essonne (3.8), and Guyane (3.0). Guadeloupe has more than three times as many bakeries per resident as Guyane, subject to the overseas caveat above.

Bakeries in your department#

For each of the 100 departments, the table gives the number of operating bakeries, their share of the total, their density, and the share not part of a chain or franchise. The 693 bakeries outside those departments appear on a separate row.

The 100 departments: bakeries, share of total, per 10,000 residents, not part of a chain

Department	Bakeries	Share of total	Per 10,000 residents	Not part of a chain
Ain (01)	316	0.9%	4.6	94.4%
Aisne (02)	246	0.7%	4.7	93.5%
Allier (03)	203	0.6%	6.1	93.5%
Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (04)	120	0.3%	7.2	94.4%
Hautes-Alpes (05)	132	0.4%	9.2	93.4%
Alpes-Maritimes (06)	711	2.0%	6.3	95.7%
Ardèche (07)	224	0.6%	6.7	94.7%
Ardennes (08)	158	0.4%	6.0	97.9%
Ariège (09)	112	0.3%	7.2	96.7%
Aube (10)	149	0.4%	4.8	92.2%
Aude (11)	207	0.6%	5.4	94.4%
Aveyron (12)	175	0.5%	6.3	96.6%
Bouches-du-Rhône (13)	1,195	3.3%	5.7	93.0%
Calvados (14)	460	1.3%	6.5	94.0%
Cantal (15)	106	0.3%	7.4	97.4%
Charente (16)	197	0.5%	5.6	95.3%
Charente-Maritime (17)	452	1.2%	6.7	96.7%
Cher (18)	163	0.4%	5.5	91.1%
Corrèze (19)	165	0.5%	6.8	93.8%
Corse-du-Sud (2A)	137	0.4%	8.1	99.1%
Haute-Corse (2B)	124	0.3%	6.6	98.8%
Côte-d'Or (21)	270	0.7%	5.0	87.8%
Côtes-d'Armor (22)	314	0.9%	5.1	96.8%
Creuse (23)	75	0.2%	6.5	96.9%
Dordogne (24)	281	0.8%	6.7	94.3%
Doubs (25)	272	0.7%	5.0	93.0%
Drôme (26)	331	0.9%	6.3	94.3%
Eure (27)	287	0.8%	4.8	95.6%
Eure-et-Loir (28)	208	0.6%	4.8	92.9%
Finistère (29)	452	1.2%	4.8	95.2%
Gard (30)	446	1.2%	5.8	94.3%
Haute-Garonne (31)	600	1.6%	4.1	89.4%
Gers (32)	115	0.3%	6.0	95.7%
Gironde (33)	743	2.0%	4.4	90.8%
Hérault (34)	684	1.9%	5.6	94.6%
Ille-et-Vilaine (35)	539	1.5%	4.8	95.7%
Indre (36)	124	0.3%	5.7	92.3%
Indre-et-Loire (37)	264	0.7%	4.3	92.5%
Isère (38)	620	1.7%	4.8	94.2%
Jura (39)	162	0.4%	6.3	95.9%
Landes (40)	245	0.7%	5.6	93.6%
Loir-et-Cher (41)	188	0.5%	5.7	94.1%
Loire (42)	458	1.3%	5.9	95.3%
Haute-Loire (43)	161	0.4%	7.0	97.4%
Loire-Atlantique (44)	626	1.7%	4.2	92.8%
Loiret (45)	304	0.8%	4.4	91.9%
Lot (46)	127	0.3%	7.2	96.9%
Lot-et-Garonne (47)	174	0.5%	5.2	92.4%
Lozère (48)	71	0.2%	9.2	97.9%
Maine-et-Loire (49)	387	1.1%	4.6	91.3%
Manche (50)	325	0.9%	6.5	92.8%
Marne (51)	311	0.9%	5.5	93.4%
Haute-Marne (52)	91	0.2%	5.4	91.7%
Mayenne (53)	158	0.4%	5.2	94.7%
Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)	326	0.9%	4.5	92.2%
Meuse (55)	115	0.3%	6.4	95.9%
Morbihan (56)	430	1.2%	5.5	96.2%
Moselle (57)	557	1.5%	5.3	92.3%
Nièvre (58)	133	0.4%	6.6	94.8%
Nord (59)	1,153	3.2%	4.4	91.9%
Oise (60)	348	1.0%	4.2	95.1%
Orne (61)	165	0.5%	6.0	94.6%
Pas-de-Calais (62)	693	1.9%	4.8	89.7%
Puy-de-Dôme (63)	371	1.0%	5.6	93.2%
Pyrénées-Atlantiques (64)	374	1.0%	5.3	95.1%
Hautes-Pyrénées (65)	150	0.4%	6.5	94.7%
Pyrénées-Orientales (66)	303	0.8%	6.1	92.6%
Bas-Rhin (67)	632	1.7%	5.4	95.4%
Haut-Rhin (68)	376	1.0%	4.9	88.0%
Rhône (69)	966	2.6%	5.0	94.7%
Haute-Saône (70)	164	0.4%	7.0	96.9%
Saône-et-Loire (71)	349	1.0%	6.4	94.7%
Sarthe (72)	293	0.8%	5.2	92.3%
Savoie (73)	275	0.8%	6.1	94.5%
Haute-Savoie (74)	433	1.2%	5.0	94.4%
Paris (75)	1,622	4.4%	7.7	92.9%
Seine-Maritime (76)	685	1.9%	5.4	95.8%
Seine-et-Marne (77)	604	1.7%	4.1	93.3%
Yvelines (78)	612	1.7%	4.1	94.8%
Deux-Sèvres (79)	184	0.5%	4.9	92.9%
Somme (80)	254	0.7%	4.5	95.0%
Tarn (81)	198	0.5%	5.0	91.8%
Tarn-et-Garonne (82)	149	0.4%	5.6	88.6%
Var (83)	721	2.0%	6.4	90.4%
Vaucluse (84)	383	1.1%	6.7	90.9%
Vendée (85)	372	1.0%	5.2	96.3%
Vienne (86)	209	0.6%	4.8	93.9%
Haute-Vienne (87)	188	0.5%	5.1	90.6%
Vosges (88)	246	0.7%	6.9	95.9%
Yonne (89)	194	0.5%	5.8	96.0%
Territoire de Belfort (90)	74	0.2%	5.3	91.1%
Essonne (91)	514	1.4%	3.8	92.3%
Hauts-de-Seine (92)	716	2.0%	4.3	96.3%
Seine-Saint-Denis (93)	826	2.3%	4.8	98.3%
Val-de-Marne (94)	574	1.6%	4.0	97.5%
Val-d'Oise (95)	543	1.5%	4.2	96.0%
Guadeloupe (971)	408	1.1%	10.6	98.5%
Martinique (972)	230	0.6%	6.4	99.4%
Guyane (973)	89	0.2%	3.0	99.3%
La Réunion (974)	396	1.1%	4.5	97.2%
Outside the 100 departments (Mayotte, overseas collectivities, undisclosed municipality)	693	1.9%
France total	36,455	100%

What specialties and submarkets are there?#

We classified the products and services listed alongside bread in public listings. This information is available for 24,732 of the 36,455 bakeries; no listing gives it for the other 11,723. The shares below cover the 24,732 that provide it: 27% list pastries, 12% prepared snacks, and 7% a tea room.

A bakery can list several offerings: the shares should not be added together, and the "offering unknown" row has no share. Bake-off outlets are a channel, covered at level 3.

Each offering forms a submarket for a supplier: pastries and prepared snacks require different ingredients and equipment from bread.

• Pastries: the target for suppliers of pastry ingredients, display cases, and packaging.
• Prepared snacks, sandwiches, pizza: the target for food packaging and beverages.
• Tea room, café, breakfast: the target for coffee, tableware, and furniture.
• Bake-off outlets and bread retailers: handle separately, since they do not buy like a craft baker who makes bread.
• Chains and franchises: check with the head office what is approved for the whole network and what each operator chooses on its own.

How much revenue does a bakery generate?#

What public statistics show#

According to Insee, the sector's 28,211 businesses generated €14.97 billion in revenue excluding taxes in 2023, or about €531,000 per business on average. Food Service Vision reports €16.2 billion for 2025, with a different scope. Revenue per bakery, by tax regime, is covered in our article on bakery revenue.

What we measure#

Scalon linked each bakery to its operating company and reviewed its published financial statements. Of 35,901 companies whose main activity is code 10.71C, 2,071 have public revenue figures for a fiscal year ending in 2024 or later. The others' financial statements are older or confidential: 13,440 statements in our data are partly confidential. These figures therefore describe companies that publish financial statements, not all bakeries.

Of these 2,071 companies, half generate less than €566,000 in annual revenue. That exceeds Insee's average per business (€531,000): companies that publish financial statements tend to be larger. Together, they report €1.94 billion; the 10 largest account for 10.2%.

The table shows that companies with published financial statements are mostly small and midsize businesses: nearly 1 in 2 reports less than €500,000, and only 23 report €5M or more. For anyone selling equipment, point-of-sale software, or insurance, the target account size for most of these companies therefore ranges from a few hundred thousand euros to €2M.

Who generates this revenue? Companies linked to operators with just one bakery generate nearly half.

Amounts are rounded to the nearest million, so the sum of the rounded figures may differ from the rounded total by one million. Companies in the 34 chains account for 14.7% of this published revenue, not of the market. Most of the published revenue comes from craft bakers: a supplier targeting only chains leaves most of these companies out. This is also company revenue, not revenue for a single bakery when the company runs several. These companies' published revenue (€1.94 billion) covers only part of the sector (€14.97 billion according to Insee).

How do you build a bakery prospect list?#

A useful list does not start with register rows. It starts with the target for your offering, then combines channel, structure, and geography. Five points determine its quality.

1. Start with operating bakeries, not entries. A list based on the code alone sends mail to closed addresses and misses others.
2. Contact the craft baker by phone. Across the total, 65.0% of bakeries (23,685) have a public phone number and 20.0% (7,305) a website; these are minimums, since some listings are not linked to a bakery. Public email addresses are rare: 2% (under code 10.71C, read on November 2, 2026, linked listings and websites). Do not build a campaign around them. Of the 33,212 public bakery listings that give opening hours for all 7 days, 31% close on Mondays, 15% on Wednesdays, 73% open on Sundays, and 53% open before 7 a.m. (read on November 2, 2026). Our prospect list guide explains how to build and check such a list.
3. Know who you are talking to: the operator or the network's head office. For an independent bakery, the likely contact is the operator; ask who chooses the supplier. For a chain, it may be the head office (company-owned stores) or each franchisee: the list must say whether each bakery is independent or part of a chain, and which company operates it. For a miller's label, the contact remains the craft baker.
4. Refresh the list. From October 2025 to September 2026, the register recorded 3,280 new bakery registrations and 3,030 closures (code 10.71C). Among registered locations in our database, 20.9% have a SIRET number created since 2024, or a little more than 1 in 5. A year-old list misses openings.
5. Check an address yourself before calling. Look up its public listing and check the date of the latest customer review: a customer review less than a year old is a good sign that the shop is open. If the name has changed, look for a business sale in the legal notices: 4 of the 10 entries with no active bakery in our check were takeovers, and the bakery is open under another operator with its own entry.

The register identifies the company officers of 78% of the 36,380 businesses with at least one location under code 10.71C. Half are 47 or older, and 14% are 60 or older: some bakeries will change hands in the coming years (October 1, 2026 register, read on November 2).

Is the market changing? Openings, closures, and takeovers#

A count is a snapshot at a given date. It does not say how many bakeries closed during the year. The register records a date for every opening and closure: from October 2025 to September 2026, it recorded 3,280 new bakery registrations under code 10.71C, including takeovers, and 3,030 closures. The balance remains positive (250 more over these 12 months), but it does not tell us whether the number of bakeries is growing.

A takeover is often recorded as both a closure and a new registration, so these figures also capture changes of ownership. In our check, 4 of the 10 entries under 10.71C with no active bakery were businesses taken over by another operator: the bakery is open under another number, which we count. For prospecting, a takeover changes the contact without changing the address.

Public sources do not all describe the same trend. FranceAgriMer finds that the number of bakery-pastry shops "has kept falling since 2019" (July 2026 study). Food Service Vision counts 32,597 outlets in 2025, down for the second year in a row. Insee's BPE remains stable: 50,106 in 2024, 50,122 in 2025. The Observatoire des métiers de l'alimentation counts 31,093 businesses in 2017 and 30,004 in 2023 (business count, a different count from Ésane). These series have different units and scopes: they cannot be joined into a single trend line.

How do you use these figures for market research?#

Size an addressable market#

Start with the target for your offering: the "How many bakeries? It depends on your question" table gives the figure for each target.

Segment the market#

Combine channel, structure (chain, franchise, or independent), and specialty: a craft baker who makes bread on site, a bake-off outlet, and a chain require different sales approaches.

Choose a territory#

Compare territories by density rather than volume, using the department table.

Track a changing market#

The market keeps changing: a study needs a date and regular updates. Published counts are on the Scalon Observatory. For these same businesses, we have also published what bakery hygiene inspections show.

Which NAF code does a bakery use?#

A craft bakery's NAF (or APE) code is 10.71C, "bakery and bakery-pastry shop." The APE code is the main activity Insee assigns to each location. According to Insee, this code covers craft production combined with retail sales of bread, sweet baked goods, fresh pastries, waffles, and crêpes. As of October 1, 2026, 41,505 open locations carry this code in the register; Urssaf counts 26,033 employers under it at the end of 2025.

Three neighboring codes describe bakeries that 10.71C does not include:

• 10.71B, baking of bakery products: bake-off outlets (1,104 employers at the end of 2025, Urssaf).
• 10.71D, pastry: 3,024 employers. A pastry shop without bread is not a bakery: in our check, none of the 9 locations registered under pastry or another code (outside bread) was an active bakery.
• 47.24Z, retail sale of confectionery, chocolate, bread, and pastries made elsewhere: 3,143 employers.

A filter on code 10.71C alone therefore does not capture the market: it retains entries with no open bakery and omits active bakeries registered elsewhere, under bake-off operations, bread retail, foodservice, or the industrial code.

The classification is changing. NAF 2025 becomes the standard on January 1, 2027: as of October 1, 2026, 99.4% of open 10.71C locations move to 10.71H. A count published after that date will need to specify its code. All changes are covered in APE code, NAF code: what changes in 2027.

How many people work in the bakery sector?#

These figures count shops, not people. The number of bakers, meaning people working in the sector, can be found in three sources.

• Insee: about 158,400 employee jobs measured in full-time equivalents (FTEs: one full-time position over the year) under code 10.71C in 2023.
• Urssaf: 194,745 employees in employer locations under code 10.71C as of December 31, 2025.
• CNBPF: more than 200,000 employees and self-employed workers, including craft bakery owners, in craft businesses (February 2026).

This is not a disagreement. Insee counts full-time equivalents, Urssaf counts registered employees, and the Confédération counts people: an employee working half time counts as one person but half an FTE, and owners are not employees. These headcounts cover all staff in the businesses, not just bakers: the sources cited here do not count bakers as an occupation. Divided by Insee's 28,211 businesses, employment comes to a little more than 5.5 FTEs per business in 2023.

Frequently asked questions#

How many bakeries are there in France?#

36,500 bakeries are operating in November 2026, give or take 3,500, including bake-off outlets and overseas territories. The register lists 41,505 locations under code 10.71C, but more than 1 in 5 entries no longer leads to an open bakery under that operator.

Why does the register count more bakeries than Scalon?#

Because it counts entries: 9,354 of them, out of 41,290 locations, no longer house an active bakery under that operator. It also misses bakeries registered under another code and 754 listings with no linked number.

How many bakeries are independent?#

At most 94%: 34,318 bakeries belong to no known chain or franchise, and their operator chooses its own suppliers. This is a ceiling: a few operators with 10 or more shops whose brand is not confirmed, such as La Panière, are counted here. The 34 chains run at least 2,137 operating bakeries, and 2,977 observed outlets, open or not. Among independent bakeries, 7,571 are run by an operator with several shops under one company or one website.

How many bakery chains and franchises are there?#

Scalon identifies 34 chains with 2,977 observed bakeries. 16 are franchises, 5 are company-owned networks, and the operating model is unconfirmed for 13. The largest are Marie Blachère (907 observed bakeries), Ange (299), and Paul (238).

What is a bakery's revenue?#

Half of the 2,071 bakery companies with recent public revenue figures generate less than €566,000 a year. The sector generated €14.97 billion excluding taxes in 2023, according to Insee, or about €531,000 per business.

How many bake-off outlets are there?#

2,278 bakeries are bake-off outlets or bread retailers, or 6.2% of the total. FranceAgriMer counted 7% among 39,500 locations in 2021.

How do you reach bakeries?#

Start with the phone: 65.0% of bakeries have a public phone number, 20.0% a website, and few have a public email address (2% under code 10.71C, read on November 2, 2026). Among listings that give opening hours, 31% close on Mondays and 53% open before 7 a.m.

Is the number of bakeries falling?#

It depends on the source. FranceAgriMer reports a steady decline since 2019; Insee's BPE is stable between 2024 and 2025; the register records 3,280 new registrations and 3,030 closures over twelve months. The series cannot be compared with each other.

Method#

The total starts with the 26,033 bakeries with employees counted by Urssaf (December 31, 2025). It adds bakeries with no employees that are still active, bakeries registered under another code, and active listings with no register entry, using data in Scalon's graph from Insee's Sirene register (October 1, 2026), public business listings, and professional directories (November 6, 2026). We count locations open to the public that mainly sell bread they make or bake on site. To measure how many still house a bakery, Scalon reviewed 120 randomly selected locations, each twice. The calculation gives 36,455 operating bakeries, rounded to 36,500, with a range of 32,978 to 39,932.

Method details and limits

Unit and universe. The unit is the bakery: a location identified by its listings and its SIRET number, if any. A craft baker with three bakeries counts as three. Excluded: pastry or chocolate shops without bread, industrial bakeries without a store, and bread resale outlets in other shops (grocery stores, tobacco shops). The universe starts with five sets of locations. A: the 41,290 locations under code 10.71C in the register as of October 1, 2026. B: the 9,341 locations whose public listing says "bakery," with a SIRET registration marked open under another code (Insee snapshot of September 24, 2026). C: the 3,147 locations whose listing says "bakery," with no linked SIRET registration marked open and a customer review less than a year old, after removing duplicates of a location in A or B (same phone number, or same name and postal code). D: the 8,858 bakery listings with no linked SIRET number and no recent customer review. U: registered locations under codes 10.71B (1,424) and 47.24Z (5,216) with no public listing. A, B, and C make up the 53,778 observed locations used to analyze operators and chains; the review covers all five sets.

Total. The total adds four counts at three dates: 26,033 employer locations under code 10.71C (Urssaf, locations that reported a payroll in December 2025); 5,903 bakeries with no employees under code 10.71C that are still active (10,823 registered locations as of October 1, 2026 with neither employer status nor an employee-size band, of which 54.5% are active according to the check: 6 yes, 5 no, and 8 undecided; between 3,031 and 8,521 at 95% confidence); 3,765 active bakeries under another code; 754 active listings with no linked register entry (262 with a recent customer review, 492 without), read on November 6, 2026. Total: 36,455. A location is an employer if the register flags it as one or gives it a headcount band of at least 1 employee: locations marked as nonemployers but with an employee-size band are therefore counted with employers to avoid counting them twice. The employers are those at the end of 2025: closures and openings in 2026 are not included, and this timing gap has not been quantified.

Range and variants. The 95% sampling range (combining group uncertainties by root sum of squares): plus or minus 3,477 (9.5%), or 32,978 to 39,932. Simply adding the groups' uncertainties gives the widest range, from 28,790 to 44,120. The error caused by the date of Urssaf's employer count is not included in the range. Variants: 33,970 if all 8 undecided nonemployers were closed, 38,527 if all were open; 36,672 without splitting group B (done after reading the check results: 7 bakeries out of 20 locations); 33,962 using the review alone, without Urssaf. Consistency check: applying the proportion of operating bakeries among locations with employees in the check (17 out of 22 cases with a conclusive finding) to the 30,467 locations with employees in the register gives 23,543, compared with Urssaf's 26,033. A location whose status remains unresolved is weighted using the proportion of active bakeries among the locations in its group whose status could be determined.

Check of 120 locations, each examined twice. 100 locations were selected at random (seed 20261106), allocated by group, plus 20 additional locations (codes 10.71B and 47.24Z with no public listing). Each location's file brings together the register, public listings, and excerpts from public web pages (November 6 search). The first reading used the Claude Haiku 5.5 model (Anthropic), with a closed question and a required quotation; a second independent reading used the same texts, then Scalon resolved disagreements. The two readings agree for 86 locations out of 120 (71.7%), and for 91 out of 120 on the activity question alone. Final decision: 36 active bakeries, 61 not active bakeries, 23 undecided. The first reading was incorrect for 4 of the 74 locations whose status it classified conclusively (5.4%, at most 13.1% with 95% confidence). Scalon reviewed 20 locations again and reached the same conclusion about whether a bakery was operating in 18 cases. Reading cost: $0.124, 140 calls. Of the 45 locations under code 10.71C in the check, 10 no longer house an active bakery under that operator, including 4 takeovers: in each case, the new operator has its own open, counted entry under code 10.71C. Calculated with Urssaf, the share of 10.71C entries with no active bakery under that operator is 22.7% (9,354 out of 41,290); the review alone finds 28.7%.

Shares of the total. Each location is weighted by the active-bakery share of its check group. Locations in D and U, with no assigned operator, are counted as independent single shops. Chains and networks are also analyzed across observed locations, before removing those that no longer house a bakery: we then call them "observed." Across these 53,778 locations, 44,340 operators share the market: 40,143 have a single location, or 90.5% of operators and 74.6% of observed locations (73.4% of bakeries once closed locations are removed). Tables expressed as shares of the total (channel, operator size, chain, region) are scaled to 36,455 using the largest remainder method. For specialties, the base is the 24,732 bakeries whose listing specifies their offering.

Operators and chains. Each location receives an operator key, in this order: shared website, storefront name verified by Scalon, otherwise company (SIREN number). Shared directory, platform, website-builder, or craft-baker collective websites are not used to group locations. Millers' labels (Banette, Campaillette, Festival des Pains) are also excluded as a basis for grouping locations, since the bakers remain independent. A bakery is independent if it belongs to none of the 34 chains; operators with several shops and no confirmed storefront name, including 48 with 10 or more locations, are counted as independent. A network whose bakeries share no name, website, or company goes undetected: the number of networks is a minimum. Each chain's type comes from public evidence read on November 6, 2026 (franchise directory, franchise recruitment page, chain website, press); without evidence, "type unconfirmed." Outlet counts reported by chains are reproduced as published and reflect the dates of those sources; they cannot be compared directly with our counts.

Revenue. Revenue figures come from the published financial statements of companies whose main registered activity is code 10.71C and that are linked to an observed bakery: 2,071 companies out of 35,901, with a fiscal year ending in 2024 or later and positive revenue. The figure of 35,901 covers companies whose main activity is 10.71C; the figure of 36,380 in the section on company officers covers businesses with at least one location under code 10.71C. Company revenue covers all its bakeries. The exact median is €566,424. This base skews toward larger companies, as the comparison with Insee's average shows.

Specialties. These are based on secondary categories in public listings, grouped using a fixed classification table created by hand, for the 24,732 bakeries with a classified listing. A bakery can have several offerings.

Reachability. Phone and website: public listings linked to bakeries in the total, counted as minimums. Email and opening hours: review of public bakery listings and linked websites on November 2, 2026 (33,212 listings with opening hours recorded for all 7 days). Company officers are individuals listed in the register as currently holding a corporate office.

Geography. Department and municipality of each location; Insee's 2023 official population. Density divides 35,762 bakeries by the 68.1 million residents of the 100 departments with an official population; 693 bakeries outside these departments are excluded from the ratio. In overseas territories, we apply the national activity rate: figures for those departments are estimates that need confirmation.

Market changes. New registrations are counted using the locations' creation dates in the register; closures use the closure dates published by Insee through September 30, 2026. These figures cover code 10.71C. Half the locations have a SIRET number created no later than October 1, 2018.

Comparison with public sources. Urssaf's employers are included in the total; the only external check on the total is the variant without Urssaf. Other sources are cited for what they count: Insee (BPE, Ésane, sector fact sheet), FranceAgriMer, Gira, Confédération nationale de la boulangerie-pâtisserie, Food Service Vision, Observatoire des métiers de l'alimentation. The BPE's list of codes is not published on the pages we reviewed: our recount of 51,001 (10.71C, 10.71B, 47.24Z) indicates the approximate scale, rather than reproducing Insee's list of codes.

Rounding. Shares are calculated from the displayed counts and rounded to one decimal place; their sum is not always exactly 100%. Weighted counts are scaled to the total using the largest remainder method.

Limits. A bakery appearing in two listings that the graph has not merged is counted twice; matching by name and postal code can merge two neighboring bakeries with the same name. The active share among bakeries with no employees relies on few decided cases: it is the most uncertain component of the total. Revenue figures cover companies that publish financial statements for a recent fiscal year. We do not publish an estimate based on overlaps between directories. The commands that reproduce each figure are kept with the article.

Edition history#

• November 2, 2026: 41,500, a count of open locations under code 10.71C.
• November 9, 2026: 36,500 operating bakeries, starting with Urssaf employers, after removing entries with no bakery and adding bakeries registered under another code.
• November 9, 2026, correction: "independent" now has its market meaning, not part of a chain or franchise, or 94% of bakeries (34,318), instead of 73% "with no identified network" (sharing no company, website, or storefront name); level 3 channels are defined by what the shop does, with the register code given for reference; the region and department column gives the share not part of a chain.

Key takeaways#

France has 36,500 operating bakeries, compared with 41,505 rows in the register under code 10.71C. 94% are independent of chains and franchises: most bakeries need to be approached one by one, by phone. The 34 chains include 2,977 observed bakeries, and millers' labels are not chains.

For a study or a prospect list, define your target before choosing a count, use the same base throughout, and record when each source was reviewed.

Cite this study#

The full citation, with counts

Scalon Observatory, "Number of Bakeries in France: 36,500 in 2026," November 9, 2026: 36,455 operating bakeries in France (estimate, give or take 3,500); 41,505 open locations under code 10.71C in the Sirene register (October 1, 2026); 34,318 bakeries not part of a chain or franchise, or 94%; 34 chains and 2,977 observed bakeries. https://scalon.fr/en/observatory/number-of-bakeries-in-france

Sources#

• Principales caractéristiques des entreprises en 2023 (Ésane), Insee, septembre 2025
• Fiche secteur 1071C – Boulangerie et boulangerie-pâtisserie, données 2021, Insee, mars 2024
• Base permanente des équipements 2025, liste hiérarchisée des types d'équipements (B207, boulangerie-pâtisserie), Insee, mise à jour d'avril 2026
• Boulangeries-pâtisseries, nombre en France (chiffre BPE 2025 relayé), The Local, 28 juillet 2026
• NAF rév. 2, sous-classe 10.71C, Insee
• NAF rév. 2, sous-classe 47.24Z, Insee
• Nombre d'établissements employeurs et effectifs salariés du secteur privé, France entière x APE, Urssaf (données ouvertes)
• Tableau de bord 2025 de la boulangerie-pâtisserie artisanale, Observatoire des métiers de l'alimentation, mars 2026
• La consommation hors domicile en France (2023-2024), FranceAgriMer, juillet 2026
• Étude sur l'activité hors domicile et les modes d'approvisionnement des boulangeries pâtisseries, FranceAgriMer, avril 2022
• Communiqué Intercéréales, CNBPF, FEB et Brasseurs de France, 24 février 2026
• La boulangerie-pâtisserie a connu une croissance au ralenti en 2025 (Food Service Vision, chaînes et points de vente), La Toque, 1er mars 2026
• Franchises de boulangerie et pâtisserie (chiffre Gira 2024), Observatoire de la franchise, 11 avril 2025
• De Marie Blachère à Feuillette, la folle expansion des boulangeries de rond-point (chiffre Gira 2024), LSA, 30 mai 2026
• Les marques emblématiques en boulangerie affirment leurs valeurs (Banette), Zepros, 2 janvier 2026
• Campaillette, Grands Moulins de Paris
• Festival des Pains, page LinkedIn
• Annuaire des adhérents de la Fédération française de la franchise (Ange, La Mie Câline, Louise, Feuillette, Sophie Lebreuilly)
• Nouveau concept, digital, franchise : les priorités de Brioche Dorée (314 points de vente dont 260 en France), Républik, juin 2026
• Boulangeries-pâtisseries, secteur, Sectorama, juin 2026
• Sirene Open Data, actualités de juin 2026 (NAF 2025), Insee
• Populations légales 2023, Insee (API Melodi)
• Sirene register (Insee), public business listings, and professional directories: read in the Scalon graph on November 2 and 6, 2026.