There are various forms of tourism, for example; business, cultural, religious, medical, wildlife, leisure, and education tourism. Nevertheless, lately foodies in Uganda have taken a whole new approach to how seriously they take their food and now it’s safe to say food tourism is slowly becoming a big deal in the country. Food all over the world has always been a unifying factor bringing families, business colleagues, couples and friends together. The shift in Uganda in regards to food tourism however, is so effective that even CNN highlighted the famous rolex, which is a popular street food here consisting of an egg in a chapati. This created such a buzz that an entire rolex festival was organized and had people turning up in huge numbers to check out the different ways the rolex can be prepared as well as the types of rolexes that actually exist in Uganda.
Recently, the Kampala Restaurant week which is an endeavor to get Ugandans to enjoy fine dining at a standardized price had several people participating, is another indicator of how much food tourism is being promoted. With several restaurants to choose from, all kinds of people, of all income groups from students at university, to the working class, to foreign tourists that were in the country at the time. All these were able to enjoy the wide variety of dishes that had been carefully selected from the different restaurants around Kampala.
One of the new ways foodies have been able to lead this food movement is through ordering food online. For many tourists travelling into the country one of the biggest issues is where to get meals and the time to prepare them for example if they are expatriates with very heavy workload schedules. Even for the local people like bachelors and students who are unable to make meals, Jumia food has definitely filled the gap and provided a greatly needed service where food can be delivered to one’s door step. This too has helped promote the foodie culture. In turn this leads to more exposure for the restaurants, hotels and creates jobs while most importantly feeding people.
Need I go any further? Being a foodie/food enthusiast is much more relevant today than you may realise. Uganda has always been known to be the food basket of the East African region with a surplus of cash and food crops. Lately however, with the climate change this has affected food production and so even the increased exportation of local food that was being carried out took a dip. But with the growing culture of the foodies maybe they can take a keen interest in curbing this problem through their need to consume by coming up with innovative farming and cultivating solutions. Become a foodie today, we should all be foodies!
Stay Adventurous,
Cynthia Tumwine.
The writer is the PR Manager at Jumia Travel Uganda
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