A new Fáilte Ireland campaign called Taste the Island is a huge opportunity for publicans to become part of a major initiative to promote Ireland’s food and drink culture. The campaign will include a bespoke pub programme along with food and drink trails and events. There will be supports available for participating businesses as well as the opportunity to avail of Taste the Island branding in your pub. Fáilte Ireland will be putting a significant media and marketing budget into the campaign, which will benefit all pubs who decide to join.

A series of workshops about the initiative have just concluded and the VFI will shortly distribute more information about how publicans can best utilise the Taste the Island campaign.

The new initiative has been developed in response to the growing global interest in food and drink by Fáilte Ireland, in collaboration with Tourism Ireland, Tourism Northern Ireland and a range of stakeholders.

Taste the Island will showcase Ireland’s world-class food and drink culture across the island of Ireland from September to November to provide visitors with access to authentic food and drink experiences, high quality local ingredients and world class Irish food and drink produce. The extensive programme running over three months will seek to create an awareness and renewed appreciation at home and abroad of the strength and richness of Ireland’s cuisine today.

Martina Kerr Bromley, Fáilte Ireland’s Head of Enterprise Development, said:

“We are urging people in the food and drink industry throughout Ireland to get involved and participate. The programme of events for ‘Taste the Island’, will include visits to food producers, distillers and brewers; food trails, food festivals, participation in traditional skills, opportunities to forage, traditional pubs, small-town cafés, restaurants, city bistros and Michelin-starred experiences.

This initiative supports Fáilte Ireland’s strategic imperative to address seasonality and grow revenue by driving increasing bed nights outside of the summer season while also driving visitors to explore lesser-known locations across the country and will, in the long term, enhance Ireland’s international food and drink reputation before they get here.

Commenting on the initiative Tracey Coughlan, Fáilte Ireland’s Food Strategy Manager, said:

“We’ve done the research and know that in order to respond to the rapid growth in travel today and increasing visitor expectations around food and drink, an initiative of scale is required to maximise our full potential in all areas. The international competition is intense, if we want to ensure that the tourism industry capitalises fully, this initiative will have to grow on a sustained annual basis.”