Culinary visitor centre planned for Meath

TOURISM:THE MEATH Partnership has advanced plans to establish a €1 million culinary tourism visitor centre as part of a bid to take advantage of the growing food tourism sector here.

According to Michael Ludlow, chief executive of the Meath Partnership, culinary tourism is “increasing in Ireland and we want to take advantage of that”.

According to Ludlow, the Co Meath centre – when up and running – will provide 30 to 40 full-time jobs and an additional 20 part-time jobs during the peak tourism season.

It is envisaged the hub will function as a driver of culinary and food tourism activity, and as a centre of excellence for upskilling among food tourism providers.

Ludlow said that visitors to the centre will be able to see how local food is produced and prepared, purchase food from local artisan producers and take part in classes.

Kevin Sheridan of Sheridan Cheesemongers also sits on the board of the Meath Partnership.

Sheridan said: “The concept of a culinary visitor centre is really, really good. The key to it will be to get as many uses in the centre as possible in order to make it viable.”

He added: “Fáilte Ireland has recognised the importance of food tourism. There is a growing interest in local food and this is something that can be repeated in counties across the country due to the regional diversity in food produced.”

Sheridan said that the centre can also act as an incubation unit for start-up artisan food producers.

He said: “The centre should have a tourism, manufacturing and community mix.”

Sheridan is one of 18 board members on the Meath Partnership, which allocates state and EU funding to enterprises in Co Meath.

According to Ludlow, the partnership has a budget of €12.74 million to the end of December 2013.

Some 50 per cent of this has yet to be spent with a limit of €200,000 per project.

Ludlow said that the Meath Partnership provided grant aid funding to Tayto Park “and we are hoping for similar success with the food centre”.

He added that he expects the mix of visitors to be evenly split between domestic and overseas.

A similar culinary centre is planned for Roscommon. The partnership is tendering for consultants to carry out a feasibility study into establishing the two centres.

According to Ludlow, the partnership is aiming for the Meath culinary hub to be in place for the 2013 tourist season.