California Foie Gras Ban Backfires: Demand for the Delicacy at All-Time High

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Foie Gras with Fig and Thyme

When someone’s right to have something they enjoy is taken away, they want it that much more. The demand for foie gras is at an all-time high.

Reno, NV (PRWEB) June 28, 2012

Foie gras sales at Restaurants, retail stores and online gourmet food retailers have soared in the months leading up to the July 1st deadline, the date on which the production and sale of foie gras in California becomes illegal.

“Foie Gras sales are over five times what they usually are in the month of June, making this the best month since our launch in 2004”, stated Laurel Pine, Founder of Mirepoix USA (enjoyfoiegras.com), a leading online purveyor of specialty gourmet foods and traditional French foods. Restaurants such as San Francisco’s La Folie report that foie gras sales have tripled. Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the largest foie gras producer in the US anticipated the dramatic increase in sales and therefore was well prepared for the spike in business.

“When someone’s right to have something they enjoy is taken away, they want it that much more. The demand for foie gras is at an all-time high”, stated Pine. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, French-born chef Roland Passot, owner of La Folie stated, “We know that prohibition never works and it never will. The state has a $16 billion deficit. Here we’re going to create a foie gras police so we can look for chefs who are serving foie gras? This is laughable.”

If the goal of the foie gras ban in California was to decrease the amount of foie gras consumed in the US, the ban has failed. According to Mirepoix USA, the increase in media attention, combined with the psychological prohibition factor has created a surge in demand for the duck liver delicacy. California foie gras connoisseurs will not stop eating foie gras even after the ban is enforced.

According to Mirepoix USA, California customers are buying large quantities of foie gras and storing it in their refrigerators and freezers. “Online customers are buying 4, 8, even 10 pounds of foie gras at a time. When their supply runs out, I believe customers will drive or fly to Nevada to restock”, Pine explained.

Mirepoix USA is establishing retail locations in both the Reno/Tahoe area and Las Vegas Nevada. Customers will be able to legally buy foie gras in Nevada, and return to California with their products if they chose to do so. California Senate Bill (SB 1520) bans the production and sale of foie gras, it does not prohibit possessing the product.

Some California restaurants, including San Francisco’s Incanto and La Folie, will continue to prepare foie gras if their customers buy the fattened liver legally out of state and bring it to the restaurant for the chef to prepare.

Not only is demand for foie gras at an all-time high, but law enforcement in both San Francisco and Los Angeles have expressed little interest in enforcing the ban. Sergeant Michael Andraychak, a San Francisco Police Department spokesman said in an interview with Bloomberg “I’m not aware of any plans for us to enforce it”.

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