Good practice:

Local Breakfast - Mic dejun sibian

Inspired by the first Slow Food Travel program in Carinthia launched in 2016, the Local Breakfast program is designed to promote the region’s local culture and artisanship, by offering local seasonal fresh products, prepared in a traditional way.
This promotion happens through several accommodation providers (hotels, guesthouses or smaller types of accommodations) both in the urban and rural areas of the region, providing breakfasts based on a quality chart prepared by the Sibiu County Tourism Association. The chart informs on the structure of a local breakfast, and based on a questionnaire on the existing breakfast offer, defining the difference between local and regional and the requirement for justifying the local origin of breakfast ingredients, tries to multiply the local ingredients within local breakfast offers.
Participating accommodation providers, who had previously adapted their breakfast menus to the criteria set by the Tourism Association, are featured on the Tourism Association’s web page and social media channels with illustrations of their events and offers and with stories behind their offers.
This practice, besides gaining visibility for the region, helps local food producers through a new sales channel by providing the local ingredients for the accommodation providers all over the region. Therefore, the local breakfast contributes to the establishment of short supply chains and the support of local producers and SMEs.

The program can be implemented with the following resources:
- human: an employee which dedicates his/her time for visits and advising the accommodation sites, documenting, and promoting the breakfast service
- logistics: transportation to the various locations in the county

Number of guesthouses or boutique hotels in the program: 23
Number of large hotels in the program: 4
Reach of the program, number of municipalities: 12
Number of media appearances in the local or national media: 5 articles
Partners attracted in the project: 2 Asociatia My Transylvania, Slow Food Sibiu

International chain hotels have a required standard of “international” dishes and do their acquisitions based on big contracts, so we had to adapt and offer a local breakfast corner instead of a local buffet.

Partner regions with a similarly high rate of visitors booking also breakfast along the overnight should consider this practice. Firstly, because it ensures the largest possible contact of the tourists with the local food in the existing hotels and guesthouses. Secondly, because it creates economic connections between the accommodation providers and the local producers. Not at last, because tasting the products of a region is the best way to recommend a visit to a specific territory and its small producers.
The existing project is a replica of the original idea implemented by Slow Food International in Carinthia, Austria in 2016. Hence, it is very easily transferable and very generous and adaptive.