Authentic Taste and Romanian Traditions – memories or opportunities?

Opportunity: Traditionally prepared organic food

In a world that is moving fast-food, where traditional recipes are industrialized, Romania seems eager to keep pace with this trend, and forget about its authentic gastronomic heritage.The first step made at a global level to prevent the loss of the gastronomic patrimony, was made by the Italian Slow Food 20 years ago, by creating an organization whose primary goal was the promotion of biodiversity and environmental responsibility, of traditional farming techniques and products its replacement by factory farming. The Romanian “Plescoi Revolution” will be joining the Slow Food movement, in order to save tasteful traditional products like the mutton and goat sausages Plescoi and Virsli, or Placinta Creatza and Branza Usturoaie.

Given the fact that in the western countries more and more people have become preoccupied with the quality of their food, the opportunities for marketing Romanian traditional products, obtained by using organic principles, are plenty. Countries like Spain, France, Italy, or the Netherlands, having already lost a great deal of their gastronomic diversity, have now a keen interest in purchasing healthy, ecological products, unaltered by chemicals and preservatives. No wonder the huge success the Romanian branza de burduf and the forest fruit jams have at gastronomy fairs, like Salone di Gusto this year!

Some of the Romanian small, but active, communities of peasants and livestock farmers, benefit from the help of Slow Food or of several NGO’s in order to make consumers aware of issues such as organic agriculture. Therefore, an investor in Romania can help the farmers comply with the EU standards, but without interfering in the recipe or the actual technique that makes the product authentic. The small producers cannot survive on the market by themselves, their brand is borrowed by industrial mammoths that do not follow the recipe and transform a gourmet product in a FMCG, flavored with preservatives and artificial aromas.

As the distribution networks are faulty, in most cases the products only reach local markets, although there is great demand across the country, and beyond borders. The peasants cannot sell their authentic products because they don’t have access to the market. Until now, the promotion and actual marketing of traditional Romanian food has only been made at gastronomic fairs and exhibitions, and only with the help of some NGOs.

There are opportunities for marketing in organic food stores on the external market products like: autochthonous pork and mutton, cured meats, vegetables, fruit, locally grown spices, brandy made of native pears and plums, wine, branza de burduf (cheese pressed into cylinders made of fir bark) and telemea, pickles, cabbage and cucumbers in brine, zacusca, honey, raspberry, blackcurrant, strawberry, bramble or other fruit jam, natural syrup extracted from fir tree shoots.

Another opportunity would be to open restaurants or other eateries – mostly in western countries, where the demand is larger – serving healthy dishes using Romanian traditional, organic products.

Written by Laura

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