Enter Philly Homegrown (www.visitphilly.com/food), a $450,000 consumer-education and tourism-marketing program created by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC), along with the William Penn Foundation, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) and the local food community.
Philly Homegrown is a two-year initiative geared to showcasing the region's bountiful local food scene and identifying foods that are both healthy, delicious, and support the local economy.
Whether you're visiting or live here, the Philly Homegrown message resonates. According to numbers cited in the "2009 Travel and Tourism Research Handbook," from Richard K. Miller and Associates, 27 million Americans, or 17 percent of leisure travelers, made culinary and/or wine activities a part of their travels within the last three years.
This could mean taking cooking classes, dining out in a unique setting, visiting farmer's markets or attending food festivals.
"What started in places like Napa and Sonoma has spread to cities like Portland and Philadelphia," said Erik Wolf, president of the International Culinary Tourism Association.
When Robert Weinberg and his partner, Eric Matzke, started City Food Tours in 2007, he was amazed at the region's bounty. "As an urbanite, many of us don't leave the city," Weinberg said. "We have everything we need right here. We see skyscrapers, but we don't always see or feel a connection to where our food comes from."
City Food tours traipse all around town, from Northern Liberties to the Reading Terminal and beyond, to establish just that connection.
