Bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien introduces cannabis bread

Bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien is to start selling cannabis bread from today. Founder Alain Coumont developed the bread with the Canbe Farm in Walloon Brabant. The chain describes it as the "most ecological bread ever".

The bread consists of a mix of peeled and unpeeled cannabis seeds, flour made from ground cannabis seeds and the chain's sourdough and flour. According to le Pain Quotidien, hemp seeds from the plant Cannabis Sativa L. are healthy and have a low environmental impact.

"Cannabis has a bad name because of marijuana, but this bread has nothing to do with that. Our customers can rest assured of that, and we communicate clearly about it," CEO Annick Van Overstraeten said in a press release.

The chain points to the extremely low THC content in the seeds, but says it has been legally challenging to make and sell the bread in Belgium. Until the end of last year, it had to obtain an official exemption from the public health authorities for each production using cannabis seeds, based on a lab test. That exemption has been optional since January under European legislation, but Le Pain Quotidien continues to carry out tests.

The bread will go on sale immediately in all 54 Le Pain Quotidien outlets in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the UK.

Le Pain Quotidien was founded by Coumont in Brussels in 1990.

^{Le Pain Quotidien founder Alain Coumont and CEO Annick Van Overstraeten at the launch of the cannabis bread in Brussels, Thursday 30 March 2023 © BELGA PHOTO LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ}