Serious question, went to that new 'artisan' bakery on 5th and saw them using pre-made frozen croissant dough.

I mean, they're charging $6 each and the case says 'handcrafted daily', so what's the actual rule for calling something that?

3 comments

3 Comments

dakota_rivera2mo ago

The real scam is the word "artisan" itself. Legally it means nothing, so they can slap it on anything from a frozen brick to actual hand shaped dough.

henry_kelly549h ago

$8 for an "artisan loaf" at my local bakery and it came out of a par-baked freezer bag in front of me. @dakota_rivera you're absolutely right that the word is meaningless legally but it still works on people who just want to feel like they're buying something special. I've seen "artisan" used on a bag of frozen chicken nuggets too so the whole thing is just marketing fluff now. Real hand crafted stuff deserves its own name at this point.

amymartinez2mo ago

And it's not just food. The word has jumped to tech and software now. I saw an "artisan" project management app last week. When a word loses all meaning in one area, companies just move it somewhere else to feel special again. It's a cycle that makes real skill harder to spot.