Picture: Hungry for Finland
Working together: Making food an important part of the experience of travelling in Finland!
The Food Tourism Contest’s judge panel was delighted by the variety and high level of the contest’s 42 participants. Winners will be announced in September 2019. Nine finalists made it to the final round of judging.
The contest serves to encourage food and tourism networks to develop new food tourism options that are based on locality. Pioneering food tourism companies and organisations that provide travellers with food experiences were sought for the contest. Its goal is to strengthen the creation of adventurous food tourism products, to find the top food tourism products, and to strengthen true cooperation. The 2019 contest is the third one held, previous editions having taken place in 2015 and 2017. Is now the right time for a summer trip into Finland’s food tourism scene?
Food Tourism Contest 2019 finalists:
- Herrankukkaro, Virginal wilderness – Food trip in the storied archipelago at Rymättylä, Naantali
- Okkola holiday cottages and Restaurant Niinipuu, Puumala, the farmwife’s pie workshop – baking Karelian pasties, bilberry and lingonberry pies at an idyllic farm house
- Harriniva Oy/ Torassieppi, Lappish Food Experience & How to be Local, guided open-fire cooking in Muonio
- Heather’s Helsinki, Fork in Hand food walk through the knowledge and flavours of Finnish food culture, tradition, and history
- Retkipaikka, Wine in the Woods, a different wine tasting in the Nuuksio forest
- Koe Meidän Tampere, a partnership network of Tampere-based entrepreneurs (experience packages): hotel room, sauna, drinks and restaurant meals, night clubs
- Keimiön Koukkaus, Shamanic dinnertime at Muonio, near the Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park
- Smaku, Smaku Events Oy, Porvoo-based food event – tasting menus at restaurants over two weeks. The event culminates in a shared feast.
- Saimaa Gastronomy Food Weekends, partnership network between four companies (Hotel Punkaharju, Sahanlahti Resort, TeaHouse of Wehmais and Tertti Manor)
The Food Tourism Contest is linked to the Hungry for Finland (H4F) food tourism productising project (EU Rural Development Fund). Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences is in charge of coordinating the project and the contest.
What is food tourism?
Food tourism involves travellers encountering tasty restaurant meals that are based on a region and its stories, home food, street food, guided cooking sessions for Finnish food as well as food tourism products related to natural ingredients and gathering thereof, meals in nature and cultural environments, various food tourism routes and events, market places, market halls, special stores such as those of cheesemakers, vineyards and microbreweries, and programmes constructed around them. Food tourism is heavily involved with stories, locality, and purity. At its best, a food tourism product is involving and active, allowing the traveller to learn something new and to have an experience.
More information:
Kristiina Havas, kristiina.havas@haaga-helia.fi, puh. 0500 688 332 www.hungryforfinland.fi
