The TASTE Demo Day is designed as a key milestone in the project journey, bringing together the most promising collaborative initiatives at the intersection of food and tourism. Its main objective is to give selected projects the opportunity to present, test and pitch their refined ideas, strengthen their international connections, and compete for top-up funding that will help them move from concept to pilot implementation. Taking place within the Alimentaria Hostelco Fair in Barcelona, the event also aims to foster networking, business matchmaking and visibility, while supporting projects that contribute to the green, digital and resilient transition of the tourism and food sectors.

Top-up Funding – Selection Process

The top-up funding scheme is designed to support the 15 most promising collaborative projects in further developing, testing and scaling their solutions. The selection will take place during the Demo Day in Barcelona, where projects will participate in a pitching competition.

Eligible projects must be developed by transnational partnerships (2–5 organisations), led by a tourism SME, and must address at least two key dimensions of the triple transition: sustainability, digitalisation and resilience.

Projects are expected to demonstrate strong collaboration between the tourism and food sectors, with activities such as joint product development, pilot testing, internationalisation or knowledge exchange.

The evaluation will be based on several criteria, including:

• relevance and innovation

• level of cross-border collaboration

• potential for testing and validation

• replicability and impact

• cost-effectiveness

• quality of the pitch

Selected projects will receive additional financial support to further develop their initiatives and will have the opportunity to showcase their results at the final Showcase Day in Turin (2026).