Good practice:

Macedonian Cuisine Food Truck of the Region of Central Macedonia

The Macedonian Cuisine Food Truck started its journey to Europe from the 34th Philoxenia expo on November of 2018. It was planned to continue traveling for the next two years all over Europe, participating in international gastronomic events as well as in touristic expositions that the Region of Central Macedonia would take place. Macedonian Cuisine Food Truck aims at promoting Central Macedonia as an exceptional gastronomic – touristic destination. Furthermore, during the Philoxenia 2018 it was the Governor of Central Macedonia himself serving the people.

This practice constitutes a marketing technique that can be used for promoting a variety of purposes, including for example sustainable mobility or participatory planning on SUMPS. The idea of using a mean (e.g. e-vehicle) as a tool to attract audience provides a great opportunity to engage people and inform them on e.g. promoting sustainable mobility, a basic principle of the target of low-carbon economy. In the case of e-smartec project, this tool could be an electric bicycle that people could test and ride, or even a “mobility truck”, designed to promote sustainable mobility. A famous person could be used to drive the vehicle and boost the promotion of the idea. The opportunity underlying here, is not only the employment of the “truck” used as a tool for engaging people, but also the provision of a live strong experience on the issue trying to be promoted.

Human resources came from the Region of Central Macedonia and experts on the promoted subject. This practice didn’t encounter any regulatory constraints and it can easily be adopted to the needed context.

The success of this practice can be depicted by the amount of people that had the chance to participate in this practice, during the expositions that the Food Truck participated in (around 21.000 people). The success is believed to be a result of Celebrity Marketing as Mr. Apostolos Tzitzikostas who is the Governor of Region of Central Macedonia, firstly presented the Macedonian Cuisine Food Truck.

The main challenge that this GP has to encounter is to reach the audience and change its habits. Especially for convincing the public for the benefits of mobility planning measures, real life experience is considered to have the best results, and thus, this GP encounters the challenge sufficiently.

This practice could, potentially, interest other regions to learn from, as it has no limits in its application due to the fact that each region can have the chance to promote an idea, combining with the ability of the “truck” to travel everywhere and promote the relevant idea through the citizens’ participation. In the field of mobility, similar practices could also apply for engaging citizens into sustainable modes of transport. A paradigm can be provided for the promotion of e-mobility: a clean vehicle could start its trip around the city/metropolitan area/region, calling people to test it and familiarize with the concept. Celebrity marketing can also apply in this case.