The use of local cuisine items at food and beverage businesses and examined in terms of sustainability: Example of Izmir

Local food products are an important factor that reflects the culture of the regions, regional development and sustainability aims. Upon the realization of the lack of attention driven towards the local food products a trend arose to promote the local products and the cuisine in many parts of the world. Along with the benefits of local food products to the gastronomy tourism, there are positive effects on the sustainability of the tourism and food. In this study it is attempted to measure the importance given to the local food products and the local cuisine across the food and beverage businesses through their applications as well as the prioritization of the sustainability of the food and cuisine in these applications in İzmir, selected as the focus of the study. Through qualitative method, 25 responsible person (chef, sous chef, manager, the business owner and business owner chef) from food and beverage businesses were interviewed. According to the results 96% of the local products exist in the kitchen process and 76% of the local food are included in the menus. In terms of the obstacles encountered in the use of local products, it was determined that 82% of the enterprises using local products stated that they did not experience problems in terms of supply, seasonality, cost and menu permanence. Besides, it was seen that flavor (75%) and freshness (62,5%) factors had a priority in preferring local product use. However, practicing these applications are in concern, a limited number of enterprises are observed to provide contribution to sustainability. 64% of the participants find the sustainability individualistically important but among 44% did not consider this in their goals within business policy.