The news broke at 7:50 pm, Basque Country time: the Basque Culinary Center (BCC) has just received an award from the European Commission for their Culinary Action! program.
This happened at the 15th edition of the European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA), which were held this year at Portoroz, Slovenia, and organized by the European Commission. The EEPAs reward those who promote a spirit of entrepreneurship and small companies at the national, regional, and local levels. All EU member countries can participate, as well as Albania, Bosnia-Hertzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Iceland, and the United Kingdom. Since 2006, more than 4,000 projects have been nominated for the award, and together, they have helped in the creation of over 10,000 new companies.
At the finals for Category 1, Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit, there were three finalists: Centre for Creativity (CzK) from Slovenia (the hosts of this year’s event), Youth Awareness Weeks from France, and the Culinary Action! project from the Basque Culinary Center.
As we just said the anticipation was finally broken just before 8:00 pm, when the winner for this category was finally announced: the Culinary Action! project from the Basque Culinary Center. When the award was announced, this project was said to be chosen from “among hundreds of projects, as the best initiative to promote the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe.”
This is their introduction on the website for the 15th edition:
Culinary Action! (CA!), implemented by the Basque Culinary Centre, provides training and supports the professionalization of the gastronomy sector. Since 2011, Basque Culinary Centre has been contributing to innovation and growth in the gastronomy sector, not least through its involvement in the Faculty of Gastronomic Sciences at Mondragon University and the unique Centre for Research and Innovation in Food and Gastronomy, where the project is helping to produce the chefs and food scientists of the future. What’s more, through other projects, such as Building a Green Gastronomic City, CA! is helping to find circular economy solutions to food sustainability challenges and create an environment where experts, suppliers, producers, chefs, and consumers can co-create solutions to reactivate local gastronomy and educate citizens on sustainability. The project’s overarching goal is to instil its values of passion, excellence, and social commitment into gastronomy research and innovation.
And that’s why they (we) won!
We can’t help but feel proud of everything the Basque Culinary Center means, as our regular readers will know how much we’ve spoken of them since their beginnings, as the synthesis of tradition, collaboration, and the future. We are equally proud of the Basque Culinary World Prize, one of our most beloved awards here on the blog, as it seems, much like the BCC itself, to be strategic for our country.
We firmly believe that being leaders in the field of gastronomy is key for our global projection as a society and as a culture. We firmly believe that we must build our brand as the “Culinary nation“. And we believe this for two reasons: one, because we deserve it, and two, because if we don’t make it ours, others will, and we’ll have lost a golden opportunity.
Now is the time to congratulate all those who designed this project, all those who believed in it, and all those who promoted it (and here, we include ourselves, as far as we were able to help). We’re lucky enough to live in a country where were still have people who believe and who take risks to put what they believe in into practice, to get it going, without listening to those who would rather nothing get done. The BCC is just another example that we as a country have the ability and energy to do great things.
This is an amazing thing for an extraordinary program we’ve been wanting to discuss for weeks, and seeing this award finally given out to them meant we could not delay one minute in publishing and sharing such excellent news!
Zorionak!!!
https://twitter.com/EEPA_EU/status/1460681648283045888?s=20
The Culinary Action! website
Promoting Enterprise News Portal (Comisión Europea) – 2021 – Europe
EEPA 2021 Shortlist – Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit
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Promoting Enterprise News Portal (Comisión Europea) – 2021 – Europe
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Comisión Europea – 2021 – Europe
European Enterprise Promotion Awards
The European Enterprise Promotion Awards reward those who promote entrepreneurship and small business at the national, regional and local level. Initiatives from all EU countries, as well as as well as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Iceland and the United Kingdom can take part in the competition. Since 2006, over 4,000 projects have entered the awards and together they have supported the creation of well over 10,000 new companies.
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European Cluster Collaboration Platform – 8/2021 – Europe
European Enterprise Awards 2021 Winners selected
The top national projects for the European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA) 2021 have been announced! National Coordinators submitted a total of 47 entries from 28 countries to the EEPA Secretariat for the next stage, which will be at the European level.
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Last Updated on Nov 16, 2021 by About Basque Country