This Chinese billionaire wants you to eat his baguette

Your fancy French bread could soon be Chinese in origin, if a local billionaire has his way.

Over the past four years, Chinese businessman and chairman of Reward Group Hu Keqin has been buying land in flour-producing regions of France to meet the changing tastes of the fast-expanding, well-traveled Chinese middle class.

"I'm counting on the young generation born in the 1980s and 1990s - keen travellers - and on children, but also the older generation whose eating habits are changing," Hu said in a report by the AFP. "The potential is huge."

Central to this plan is Reward's acquisitions of wheat fields in the central Indre and Allier regions. While the French government is promising to block sales of vast swathes of farmland, Hu has skirted around regulations by taking over individual farms.

Hu Keqin (middle) at the opening of Chez Blandine in Beijing last year.

Hu also aims to control the entire process from seed to baguette. Chez Blandine is a French bakery opened by Reward in Beijing last year, with its entire industrial chain owned and operated by the company.

Additionally, Reward is partnering with several companies in France to import French produce into China. They have teamed up with Axereal, the country's biggest cereal co-operative, to supply flour and bread-making techniques, and is considering a deal with Laughing Cow cheese producer Bel and France's biggest meat supplier Bigard to bring in French beef once the embargo is lifted.

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