The European Region of Gastronomy 2019 title was recommended to be given to two bidding regions, South Aegean (Greece) and Sibiu (Romania), on Thursday 29 September 2016 at the Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu. The announcement took place prior to the 9th European Region of Gastronomy Platform Meeting.
The international jury comprising of IGCAT experts was chaired by Blanca Cros from the Catalan Tourist Agency (Spain), and included Peter Astrup, Central Denmark Region (Denmark); Anna Blaua, Delightfully Delicious Destination Project at Riga Tourism Development Bureau (Latvia); Alfred van Mameren, Province of Noord-Brabant (Netherlands) and; Ilona Sares, ProAgria Kuopio (Finland).
The jury was impressed with the work undertaken by both candidates regions in preparing and presenting their bids remarked that they had both:
- managed to integrate the different focus areas of the European Region of Gastronomy very well into their programme;
- obvious gastronomic strengths on which to implement their programmes;
- shown a strong commitment from the regional partners to the programme;
- a good stakeholder base with representatives from public, private, third sector and universities.
The jury formulated its recommendations to each of the two regions, advising them to:
- think about more activities to promote collaboration between SMEs at European level, particularly taking advantage of the linkages that could be established;
- consider how will they ensure pride is taken in the programme by local people;
- plan how they will work with all the European Region of Gastronomy Platform regions on collaborative marketing;
- present good qualitative as well as quantitative indicators;
- clarify how they will use the budget for their programmes.
In addition, it was recommended that Sibiu:
- give more attention to innovation and agriculture involving large scale companies;
- link programs, events and others actions regarding the focus areas and objectives to give more clarity;
and, it was recommended that the South Aegean:
- implement the digital agenda as a priority ensuring they bring in the right tools and expertise;
- assign someone from the executive committee authorised to full time assist the coordination of this programme.
IGCAT’s board will approve the jury decision in November 2016 and an official award ceremony will take place in early 2017.
