Held every year on 18 April, World Food Travel Day promotes local culinary cultures. This year is the first time that Poland and Polish tourism organisations are taking part.

World Food Travel Day is an international celebration that takes place every year on 18 April and aims to promote local and regional culinary traditions. The event was initiated by the World Food Travel Association in 2019.

This year’s edition has been unique due to the pandemic that continues to affect the world, but also because it was the first time Poland joined in the celebration. The event’s coordinator was the WFTA’a ambassador in Poland, Hubert Gonera, whose claims to fame include designing culinary trails all over the country.

Tourism organisations from around Poland were invited to take part, preparing numerous programmes promoting the cuisine of their respective regions. For example, the Pomeranian Regional Tourism Organisation (PROT) set up a number of attractions, including a campaign featuring a film promoting the region’s culinary hits and a competition in which the prizes were baskets filled with local, Pomeranian flavours.

“This year’s event is being celebrated at a time that poses an enormous challenge to the tourism and catering world”, commented Łukasz Margian, director of the PROT office. “We are convinced that our online activity will popularise the Pomeranian region’s culinary potential among our guests and help them plan a personal visit to places that will soon be able to welcome visitors once again”, he added.

A series of short videos about Easter dishes has been posted on the TVK Winogrady YouTube channel. The clips, presenting seasonal treats like żurek sour soup, Polish white sausage and mazurek cake, were made thanks to the involvement of Marta Masternak, junior ambassador of the World Food Travel Association in Poland.

You can follow the WFTD events by visiting the World Food Travel Association’s Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/worldfoodtravel. Despite the pandemic and its limitations, may countries have decided to take advantage of this opportunity to show off their culinary traditions.

“We’d like to invite all food lovers to celebrate World Food Travel Day, because there are so many ways of celebrating. I also hope that more regions, restaurants and cities will take part in future editions of World Food Travel Day. Poland’s culinary identity is yet to be properly discovered”, Hubert Gonera points out.