Innovative Strategies for Public Catering: the Expansion of the Sustainable Public Meal Toolkit

StratKIT+

Practical Testing of the tool "Learning dialogue for farmers and caterers" by Development Centre of Võru County, Estonia

05 September 2023

The main goal of Võru County is to build a functioning food network strategy where local producers are ready to produce more and local people and institutions are ready to consume more local organic food. Below you can see some of the events that have been organised in Võru County as part of the implementation of the tool "Learning dialogue for farmers and caterers".

Technical details

Development Centre of Võru County has been implementing and testing the tool that will benefit especially the relationship between the local producers and the public meal caterers. Here are some of the events that have been useful when promotion the dialogue between the local food providers and caterers:

In 2022:

On 2nd of November 2022 a tour to local organic farmers was organized for local (school) caterers and farmers with the aim to promote organic food and collaboration and networking.

In 2023:

On 1st of February a small meeting between catering companies and local organic farmers was held. The aim of the meeting was to introduce caterers the possibilities how to become organic restaurant/caterer and what kind of organic raw materials we have to offer in the area and systems how to order them (wholesalers).
30th of March a tour to visit organic farmers outside our region with local organic farmers, school caterers and caterers was organized with the aim to promote organic food and collaboration and networking.
On 25th of May a tour to local organic farmers was organized for local (school) caterers and farmers with the aim to promote organic food and collaboration and networking.
On 1st of June a public contact seminar between Võru counties organic producers with (school) caterers was planned to find actual new partners in each. When previous events were more focused on inspiring, networking and creating organic mindset, then this event was planned for both sides to find actual partners to supply organic goods. 13 farmers showed their products, talked about their manufacturing and price listings. After the contact seminar the event continued as a public fair, where different local producers could sell their products, school children competed in organic pancake cooking competition and organic mindset workshops/seminars where held for public. Read more about the event on FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/174878168711291
On 16th of August a tour to local organic farmers is planned for local (school) caterers and farmers with the aim to promote organic food and collaboration and networking.

Who are your target groups when implementing this tool?

Our target groups at this point are educational institutions, caterers, public institutions and local farmers. Development Center of Võru has but together a workplan how to motivate all sides to reach our counties goals. One very important part is to encourage more collaboration between sides and to bring knowledge to both sides about the different possibilities in the county. Taken that into account we have prepared several meetings/events between both sides.