At the Riga Food exhibition, we introduced the culinary tourism project BASCIL

This year, the association “Zemnieku saeima” has participated in the international culinary tourism project “BASCIL Interreg Baltic Sea Region” with the aim of popularizing and promoting the recognition of the final products produced by its members and promoting their competitiveness in the market. The partner involved in the project is a cooperative from Saldus – “Provinces produkti”. Its creators are engaged in cattle breeding, and the cooperative was once established with the aim of popularizing and selling the products of other local Latvian producers.

On September 7-9, the culinary tourism project BASCIL was widely represented at the international exhibition “Riga Food”, which took place in Riga, at the Ķīpsala Hall. As part of the exhibition, an international annual cider festival was organized with the Nordic International Cider Awards (NICA) competition, in which the winners were selected in a competition among 250 ciders from 106 producers from 19 countries. Norway was the most widely represented in the competition – with 31 producers participating with 72 cider varieties. Latvia followed with 14 producers and 37 ciders. Poland surprised with a range of 20 ciders from 7 producers. Sweden, Finland, Spain, Estonia and Lithuania each offered 11-17 ciders from 5-7 producers. Austria, Belgium, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and France offered up to 10 ciders. Expanding the boundaries beyond Europe and the Nordic countries, a cidery from the United States also participated in the competition.

On September 7, after the opening ceremony of the exhibition, for a few hours at the Latvian Cider Road stand at the Riga Food exhibition, there was a unique opportunity to get to know a total of 12 Latvian cider producers’ drinks and 18 apple ciders from cider makers from different countries and realize how many countries cider is a special drink with its own specific culture and traditions. The flavors of the cider festival were enriched by the farm goods of local producers – beef products, bread and cheeses produced by Latvian farmers, which were treated to visitors and tasters by the Farmers’ Assembly and the Provinces Produkti cooperative. This was a great opportunity to offer a snack of a local product, balancing the nuances of cider flavors! Guests praised both the various cheeses and the delicious meat snacks.