Galway makes the final ten for first Restaurant Association of Ireland Foodie Town Award – now the city needs your vote!
Galway city has made the final ten in the Restaurants Association of Ireland’s search for Ireland’s first Foodie Town. Towns and communities from all over the country have been invited to battle it out to be named Ireland’s top Foodie Town. The application for Galway city was a collaborative submission led by the County and City councils, Galway Chamber of Commerce, Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, RAI, Slow Food Galway, Galway Food Festival and the local Failte Ireland Food Ambassadors Fergus O’Halloran, Jacinta Dalton and Jp McMahon. May other food related organisations also supported the initiative. The judging process is the final stage of the competition and starts on May 2nd and the people of Galway can influence the final outcome! A pre-arranged site visit worth 50% of the vote will take place in Galway city next Saturday May 10th from 10am to 12.30pm. Judges will meet and interview a member of the submission committee and will then take an experiential tour of the city. The second part of the judging (remaining 50%) is a national public voting campaign with the ten finalists canvassing the country to vote for them. Online voting will take place via http://www.foodietowns.ie from Friday, May 2nd at 12noon and closes at midnight on Sunday May 18th and the Galway team would appreciate if the people of the city and county can get behind this application. Cáit Noone, a member of the Galway Food Group and Head of College in Tourism and Arts in GMIT confirmed this is an exciting opportunity for the city and county. ‘This application was a truly collaborative effort between all partners. The application clearly demonstrated how people across the food sector in Galway – producers, restaurants, chefs, educators and public officials are working collaboratively for the benefit of the region and industry. To have the support of the public for this campaign would be hugely impressive and will certainly benefit the entire food sector in the West of Ireland. I also hope other businesses around the region would support this campaign through voting and displaying the publicity material in their businesses’. Other finalists include Cork city, Dingle/Daingean Uí Chuis, Howth, Kilkenny, Kinsale, Lisdoonvarna – Gateway to the Burren, Loop Head Peninsula, Sligo Town & Westport & Clew Bay Area. The winning town will be crowned ‘Foodie Town 2014’ at the final of the Irish Restaurant Awards on June 9th , and will receive a prize package worth €5,000.
C'Mon Galway
