The project Green Supply Chains falls under the sector of sustainable development of tourism. It aims to pursue this mission by raising awareness on the importance of consuming fresh, locally produced food to stimulate the local economy and reduce the carbon footprint. It is focused on environment protection, achieving sustainable effects by shortening supply chains and so reducing emissions, on economic development by reducing the use of fertilisers and other chemicals, and fostering the local economy. The project enables easy access of the tourism industry (hotels, restaurants) to local farmers and vice versa via a rural development cooperative, which acts as a linkage and facilitates the communication between the parties involved. An innovative purchasing platform was also set up as a one-stop shop, displaying current offers, prices and producers.
The Green Supply Chains project links and puts local food producers – including small ones – in contact with hotels and restaurants, bringing fresh, top-quality and environmentally friendly local ingredients to the tables around the city. This new cooperation model sees the public body as the main partner and financer, the private cooperative as the main facilitator, the restaurants and hotels as consumers and the farmers as suppliers. In this framework, prices are negotiated on behalf of more clients and larger quantities are purchased, making the products’ cost, quality and quantity acceptable both for farmers and businesses. In this way, no imported goods are sold in the project.
In addition to connecting the various parties involved, the role of Tourism Ljubljana is also to raise awareness on the importance of locally produced food and the tradition of Ljubljana and Slovenian food. This is being achieved through a series of culinary themed guided tours and experiences. Tourism Ljubljana have developed a website where new recipes, novelties in the city and the promotion of local culinary offers are regularly posted. It has designed further activities and initiatives to promote the project and pursue its mission, such as a culinary calendar, distributed to hotels and restaurants via a newsletter on a monthly basis, with three recipes based on seasonal, local ingredients and the list of the farms that produce these ingredients. Ljubljana Breakfast has been launched, encouraging restaurants to serve locally sourced breakfast ingredients instead of croissant and juice, and finally, there is the ‘Yummy Market’, a walking tour where visitors get the chance to taste seasonal products from local farmers and growers, which ends with a fresh, tasty, locally produced breakfast in one of the cafés and restaurants in the market’s neighbourhood.