03/12/2012

Nordic Food is the food of the moment


Nordic Food Diplomacy – the website on how to use New Nordic Food to strengthen your brand has been launched!

We have the world’s best restaurant for three consecutive years, Noma, in Copenhagen; we have 5 Nordic chefs in the top 7 of Bocuse D’or and the Swedish chef’s team just won the gold medal in the culinary Olympics. 60,000 American school children ate Nordic Food last spring. Nordic chefs travel to Japan and cook Nordic Food at Japanese restaurants and run sold-out cooking events. There are hundreds of Nordic food projects underway focusing on everything from healthy and appetizing hospital food to projects developing children’s taste buds.

So why is it that it’s still a challenge for many of our Nordic Embassies around the world to understand the impact of using Nordic food and meal experiences as a branding tool and a strengthener of the country’s identity?

The Nordic Food Diplomacy project focuses on this challenge. It aims to raise the awareness of what a powerful tool food and meals are in branding one’s country.

It focuses on using Nordic Food to strengthen the Nordic brand on a Nordic, national or regional level, using food and meals as a powerful tool. The target group for this project is the people working in the Nordic Embassies and other Nordic organizations around the world.

The project has been running since the spring of 2011 and has involved lots of people.
It started off with a workshop in Stockholm where the need for a basic website was identified. There was a desire for the website to contain a toolkit with lots of different tools which could be useful when planning and executing an event.

A need was identified for basic information on New Nordic Food and the Nordic countries which could be used in the storytelling.

A need was also identified for Nordic recipes as well as film clips, creative concepts, business models and ideas for collaboration.  

Lots of interviews were conducted with people working in embassies and other Nordic organizations, including chefs, to identify their need for information and inspiration.

A great job was done in collecting information in English for the website.

A reference group was created with people from different embassies and other Nordic organizations who were involved in the process of developing the website.


The tools have been developed, tested, evaluated and documented during a number of pilot projects.
As a result of all the work done the website has been built up over the past year and was launched in the middle of October.

It has been launched in collaboration with the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Foreign Ministries in order to set focus on the power of using food as a branding tool.

Please visit the website and get some inspiration on how you can incorporate Nordic Food Diplomacy in your everyday working life!

And help us spread the word about this website to all Nordic companies and organizations etc. around the world.

Charlotta Ranert
Project Manager
Nordic Food Diplomacy
New Nordic Food

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