TASTE

Transformative approaches for sustainable food in tourism

TASTE aims to promote innovative solutions that help European gastronomic tourism businesses move towards sustainability, digitalisation, and resilience.

Sustainable Food in Tourism: A Key Challenge

The European tourism sector is facing challenges related to the green and digital transformation, sustainability, and resilience. With increasing environmental awareness, safety concerns, and a shift to customised experiences that go beyond the traditional tourism offerings, the integration of sustainable food practices into tourism has become essential. The complexity of aligning the “from farm to fork” model with tourism industry demands, including issues like diversified sourcing and minimizing food waste, requires innovative strategies to ensure sustainable food management within tourism ecosystems. Addressing these challenges is essential for ensuring long-term competitiveness and reducing the environmental impact within the sector.

Fostering Sustainable Food Tourism

The TASTE project aims to transform the food tourism sector by focusing on sustainability and resilience. The project has developed a comprehensive support scheme for tourism SMEs, which includes identifying best practices in sustainable food tourism, implementing capacity-building programs, and launching accelerator initiatives.

Through its six work packages (WPs), TASTE will document best practices, train key stakeholders, and support SMEs in adopting innovative solutions like circular economy models and digital tools. 

The results will drive the triple transition of “Go Green, Get Digital, Be Resilient,” ensuring that tourism companies are equipped to offer sustainable food experiences and contribute to the long-term sustainability of the European tourism sector. 

Seven Partners from Five Countries

The TASTE project is driven by a consortium of seven partners from five countries (Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia, and Spain): Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona (Spain), hub.brussels (Belgium), Torino Chamber of Commerce (Italy), Destination Västerbotten (Denmark), Regional Development Agency for Podravje – Maribor (Slovenia), IGHOR – Institute for Tourism Research (Italy), and BLINK EU Projects (Spain). These organisations represent a mix of business support organizations (BSOs), destination management organizations (DMOs), academic institutions, and SMEs with expertise in sustainability and digitalisation in tourism.

B.Link, building on its extensive experience in managing third-party financial support mechanisms, will be responsible for overseeing the Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) mechanism, ensuring transparent and continuous financial monitoring in alignment with WP6. This oversight includes regular reporting to guarantee the efficient use of EU resources.

As the leader of WP4, B.Link will focus on coordinating acceleration support aimed at cultivating sustainable, innovative, and collaborative initiatives in the realm of sustainable food within the tourism sector. To achieve this, B.Link will design and launch the Accelerator Programme, evaluate applications, monitor the progress of collaborative projects, and develop a comprehensive KPI framework to measure and track the impact of the project’s actions effectively.