Launceston launching campaign to be UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy

The group is looking for $10,000 in grant funding via the Great Regional City Challenge, as they make a case for the city to be a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy.

Gastronomy is everything that has to do with people and their relationship with food, according to steering group chairperson Andrew Pitt.

He said the steering group is made up of stakeholders across several areas including food production, agriculture, education, business and art.

"We've all been working out what the best way would be to collaborate more closely to create new things that would help bolster our reputation for being a great city for food," he said.

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network is an assortment of cities given identity through one of seven classifications.

These include Melbourne: a Creative City of literature, Sydney: a Creative City of film and Geelong: a Creative City of design.

"We'll collaborate with cities across the world, but we think the greatest benefit that will come out of this is the process that we'll go through to get the application together," Mr Pitt said.

"Getting people from education talking to people growing food or people in the design area to talk to chefs.

"Through these collaborative projects the real value will be realised and we'll probably see all sorts of opportunities that we haven't seen yet."

Mr Pitt said the title of Creative City of Gastronomy would be a great way of giving Launceston a great sense of identity.

"Everyone relates to food in some way but we're also interested in how the whole approach can bring the community together," he said. Voting for the Great City Regional Challenge closes May 31; you can vote at launcestontogether.com.au.