In the run-up to the Paris Olympics, French Post Office La Poste has printed almost 600,000 scratch-and-sniff postage stamps bearing the image of baguettes. When rubbed, the stamps give off the familiar smell of freshly-baked bread.
Unveiled on Thursday 16 May, the feast day of Saint-Honoré, the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs, at the Philaposte printing works in Boulazac (Dordogne), this new stamp has a print run of 594,000 copies, various French media report. The stamps celebrate the artisan baguette, which was granted UNESCO heritage status in 2022.
"The baguette, the bread of our daily lives, the symbol of our gastronomy, the jewel of our culture," La Poste wrote on its website.
The stamps are priced at €1.96 each and depict a baguette decorated with a ribbon in the colours of the French flag. When scratched, they release a "bakery fragrance", according to the website of the Parisian stationery shop and seller of the stamps Le Carré d'encre. Ink used on the stamps contains microcapsules which provide the smell, the shop added.
"This scent is encapsulated. We buy it from another manufacturer. And the difficulty for us is to apply this ink without breaking the capsules, so that the smell can then be returned by the customer rubbing on the stamp," described Philaposte printer Damien Lavaud, quoted by France Bleu.
