Local stakeholders’ involvement in
the Gastronomic Cultural Heritage promotion

Within the SlowFood-CE* project, financed by Interreg Central Europe, a forum was held on March 07 in Brno (Czech Republic) targeting local stakeholders on the topic of involving local actors in the promotion of gastronomic heritage. Speakers from the partner cities (Krakow-Poland, Dubrovnik-Croatia, Kecskemét-Hungary, Venice-Italy) shared their own experiences of cooperative public and private work across the region.

Throughout 2019, the city of Krakow (Poland), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Kecskemét (Hungary), Venice (Italy) and Brno (Czech Republic) are going to test innovative and community-driven solutions that promote gastronomic heritage in public spaces by implementing five  ‘Pilot Actions’, as they are known. They are five different concrete actions - created within the Slow Food philosophy - aimed at enhancing specific characteristics of the local gastronomy, its roots, and cultural heritage.

The forum, entitled "Local stakeholders’ involvement in the Gastronomic Cultural Heritage promotion: critical issues and solutions for the development of a transnational strategy",  was chaired by Tom Václavík of Slow Food Brno, and was introduced by an interesting lecture, by Vít Hrdoušek of Slow Food Bilé Karpaty, on the short supply chains, local products and, development of the South Moravian territory (which hosted the forum.). 

Then, each of the five Pilot Actions were presented by Ivo Kara-Pešić (Croatia), Bea Borbely (Hungary), Tom Václavík (Czech Republic), Szymon Gatlik (Poland) and Isabella Marangoni (Italy) to generate an exchange on how differently the Pilot Action experience will be developed in the five cities contexts. 

Finally, a discussion was led by the City of Venice on how to move from the local experiences, mainly the Pilot Actions and the involvement of local stakeholders, to the elaboration of a Transnational Strategy for sustainable gastronomic heritage promotion, the intended legacy of the SlowFood-CE project.

The forum was closed by Linda Jelínková, Head of the Marketing and Tourism Department of the City of Brno.

*The EU project “SLOW FOOD – CE: Culture, Heritage, Identity and Food” is financed by the EU program Interreg Central Europe, which supports cooperation between the regions of Central Europe, and has a duration of 3 years - from 1 June 2017 to 31 May 2020. The project intends to involve public and private actors in 5 cities of Central Europe (Venice, Dubrovnik, Brno, Krakow and Kecskemét) to build and share a common methodology for the identification of the resources of intangible cultural heritage related to food and to develop a model able to protect and enhance traditional foods and their production.