Follow your nose along Kilkenny Food Trail
A new initiative aimed at making County Kilkenny the food capital of Ireland is to be launched next week.
The Taste of Kilkenny Food Trail will showcase the best of local produce and culinary businesses in the city and county. The event is to be launched at the Set Theatre on Monday.
Thirty eight local food producers and businesses are participating in the initiative which will be launched by the editor of Food and Wine magazine and Sunday Business Post restaurant reviewer, Ross Golden-Bannon.
Newly appointed Minister of State with responsibility for equality, human rights, and social inclusion, Carlow-Kilkenny Green Party TD Mary White, will also attend. Local theatre group Company D will put on a short performance at Monday’s launch.
The venture is the brainchild of Trail Kilkenny, in association with Kilkenny LEADER Partnership, and is part of a move to build a vibrant food movement to drive economic development in rural Co Kilkenny.
The participants in the trail are passionate about food and keen to celebrate food on its journey from the local producer to the table. They include the award winning Knockdrinna Farmhouse cheese, Highbank Organic Farm, Goatsbridge Trout Farm, and Lavistown gourmet sausages.
A Food Trail guide, complete with map, will be available so visitors can take a gastronomic journey to the best of artisan food producers in the county.
The Food Trail launch will be followed in October with the fourth annual Savour Kilkenny Food Festival, which is quickly being established as one of the top gastronomic festivals in Ireland. It is expected that the Food Trail will form the centrepiece of the festival this year.
Trail Kilkenny is a non-profit company established to develop, promote and maintain leisure trails in County Kilkenny.
To date it has developed river walks, scenic walks, and cycling trails, and last year it launched the Kilkenny craft trail to encourage the growth of the professional craft industry in the county.
“The development of the food trail will be another step towards Kilkenny being the future destination for artisan production and food tourism in Ireland,” according to Eoin Hogan from Trail Kilkenny.