Satoa Food Festivals: Small dishes and taste of the region from fields and forests to the tables
Would you like to taste smoked vendace or tar ice cream, tacos from freshwater fishes, the best burgers or beers in Finland, Thai food with wild herbs from the nearby forest, a beetroot cake, or an autumn mushroom soup? SATOA – food festivals are proudly celebrations of local tastes in North Savo, where dishes prepared by local restaurant entrepreneurs from local ingredients ‘in the spirit of street food culture. The event serves casual street food, the world of flavors and cuisines, and modern fine dining with a savonian twist, so welcome to a tasty trip to Kuopio.
SATOA Kuopio Food Festival will be held in the heart of Kuopio on the last weekend of August. Restaurants from North Savo that use local ingredients, products, and services in their dishes can apply for the festival. During the weekend, the food festival covers the best delicacies in the area from field to table and from nature to glass for two days. Satoa Kuopio is like a sudden trip to the province through the tastes of the world, the region’s unique food culture, and joyful savonian harvest season. On the same weekend at the end of August, visitors will be pampered by the traditional and popular Harvest Festival at Kuopio Market Square and ‘Our Kuopio City Festival. There is no entry fee or age limit for the event.
Pure nature, high-quality raw materials, new experiences, and elements of Savonian gastronomy that are every day for us and those experiences we want to share with visitors and tourists. There are many restaurants in Kuopio in relation to the population, most of them in Finland. The restaurants also focus on local food, quality, seasons according to the rhythm of nature and experiences, as well as genuine, local know-how and cooperation. The Kuopio area and the whole of North Savo in the heart of Lakeland Finland have developed into a modern, diverse gastronomic area, respecting traditions. Numerous local artisan producers create quality and personalized products that are processed into delicious flavors by both our restaurants and food operators – available to everyone. The area’s restaurants, food ambassadors, and producers are working together to bring out the province’s diverse food culture.
“In North Savo and Kuopio, the best is the power of nature and the commonality of those who work with food. The producers are passionate and do their best to love the profession. The different microclimates in the area allow for really extensive harvests from the lake to the forest, fields and gardens. Here, the flavors of the world are intertwined with local products” has been pondered by Eeva Mertanen, the official food ambassador of the Kuopio Region and the CEO of Restaurant Masters (Ravintolamestarit). The surrounding countryside offers a natural resource in terms of both lifestyle and natural values: the production of organic and local food has increased sharply in the area. Although tourism and multiculturalism have brought new flavors and colors to Finnish food for decades, the basis is always regional ingredients. The appreciation of local production is reflected, for example, in the form of popular REKO operations, local food groups that bring producers and consumers together.
Tasty, diverse, sustainable and vibrant Savo: The event is implemented and produced by MKN Eastern Finland. Rural Women’s Advisory Organisation is an internationally linked expert organization providing food, landscape, and business services and an active network of tens of thousands of rural people. Through our activities, we build a sustainable, competent and inclusive society. We present Finnish food culture in a variety of ways, as well as the heroic stories of food, and we build a Finnish of opportunity.
Award-winning food event: The SATOA street food festival was held for the first time in 2014, and the City of Kuopio also awarded it as a phenomenon of the year at that time. The Satoa event was visited by about 20,000 visitors in 2018 and 40,000 dishes were sold. In 2017, Visit Finland and Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences made the event one of Finland’s fourteen leading food tourism products. The Hungry for Finland nationwide food tourism competition 2021 brought honorable mentions to food tourism in North Savo, which included the SATOA Kuopio Food Festival, the SATOA Goes WILD wild food festival and the European Region of Gastronomy. SATOA Goes WILD is the wild little sister of the SATOA event in August, which is celebrated in mid-June. WILD is a cheerful food event that highlights the fresh ingredients of early summer: rhubarb, wild herbs, natural products, fish, etc. WILD is an adventure that revolves around the downtown area.
Backgrounds: The SATOA festivals and the www.satoa.fi website were implemented in 2015-2018 with the help of the RuokaSavo (FoodSavo) project. The goal of the RuokaSavo project was to make the region a well-known gastronomic region nationwide and internationally by 2020.
Recognition of Europe’s tastiest province: The European Region of Gastronomy is an internationally acclaimed recognition given annually to one or more European regions. The recognition for 2020-21 in the region of North Savo and Kuopio is the first of its kind in Finland, and is comparable to the title of European Capital of Culture. In a survey conducted by the World Food Travel Association (WFTA) last year, 86 percent of tourists said their choice of travel destination is influenced by its food and beverage offerings. The region is a real Finnish “food barn”, as there is a lot of primary food production in the province. Nearby you will find a wide variety of vegetables, roots and berries, a wide variety of wild fish, a variety of meat products, as well as eggs, milk and honey. The recognition of The European Region of Gastronomy is one step in the long-term development work towards the nationally and internationally known food region of Pohjois-Savo and an attractive destination for food tourism. The ERG is recognized by the European Regional Cooperation Network (IGCAT), which promotes cross-sectoral cooperation in the fields of food culture, tourism, urban culture and the arts.
SATOA KUOPIO FOOD FESTIVAL
info@satoa.fi • 040 672 0597
www.satoa.fi
#satoakuopio
Events produced by:
ProAgria Itä-Suomi ry
www.proagria.fi
More info:
040 672 0597 / info at satoa.fi