[chubot]

It's probably more available in California, but I'd also say that there's a lot of bread of that shape that isn't "artisan bread".

If it's baked by a local, skilled person (an artiasan!) and delivered early in the morning, I'd call that artisan bread.

But I think a lot of supermarket bread is basically baked in a big facility mostly by machines. I don't know the details but I think they have to make the ingredients more homogeneous for this to work. And if it's not delivered the same day, they will need to put preservatives in it.

IMO the difference is like night and day. My dad is the kind of person who swears by everything Costco, but even he likes the fresh artisan bread.