New Food course from VFI
This joint Fáilte Ireland/VFI Food and Drink development programme will support Ireland’s pubs in this endeavour.
Fáilte Ireland’s Food and Drink Strategy 2018–2023 published last January states that Ireland’s food and drink offering has a significant role to play in contributing to the value of Irish tourism: enhancing visitor experiences as well as increasing and improving the visitor’s overall stay and growing spend.
It notes that tourist and traveller expectations around food and drink are changing, reporting that over half of all visitors say that food and drink is more important now than it was five years ago and that 67% of consumers are interested in where their food comes from. It acknowledges that whilst there have been ‘significant strides’ in recent years in strengthening the ‘breadth and quality of the food and drink offering’, there’s still scope to do more to shift the perception of Ireland as a place with great food and drink experiences.
As such, the strategy identifies both the need and opportunity to increase the availability of great Irish food and drink experiences across the country every day and to tell a renewed story about the Irish food and drink experience, focusing on quality, authenticity, innovation and value for money.
Under the strategy’s investment pillar ‘Driving Industry Capacity’, the specific action “to develop a programme to support pubs in bringing authentic local food and drink experiences to life” was thus determined.
Programme overview
Fáilte Ireland, in association with the VFI, want to run a meaningful and motivating day-long training programme for owner/managers and chefs to support the creation of authentic, high-quality food and drink experiences in pubs here in Ireland.
The form and content of this programme has been informed by a number of leading industry figures and includes four key modules:
* Evolving our food and drink experienceThis module provides a context for the programme, setting the scene for the evolving food and drink movement in Ireland. It shares the rationale and opportunity for continued development
* Delivering a Taste of Place
This module explores the benefits and practices of local sourcing
* Creating your pub story
In this module participants are supported in creating their own pub story and consider ways in which they can bring it to life.
* Making business sense
This final module equips participants with the knowhow and the tools to optimise profits whilst offering a high-quality food and drink experience.
Each module shares need-to-know information, provides relevant pub case studies, best practice examples and involves discussion and/or practical exercises.
It’s anticipated that participants will be pub owners, managers or chefs and that there will be approximately 25 participants per workshop.
The programme will run over 21 days from September to December this year at a range of locations nationwide.
