The Rural Development area of the Provincial Council of Castellón will grant 10 thousand euros in subsidies to municipalities for the celebration of gastronomic fairs around the black truffle. This is the first time that the provincial institution has announced this line of aid on a competitive basis, thus following the principles of publicity, free competition and transparency that the New Provincial Council has been progressively applying in place of direct grants. As a way of promoting its celebration in the interior, more resources will be allocated to localities with less than 500 inhabitants.

With this, the Provincial Council aims to turn the truffle into one of the emblems of the provincial gastronomy and take advantage of it to economically revitalize the smaller towns of Castellón. From Rural Development, its responsible Santi Perez has stressed that the government team has marked as an objective to strengthen the gastrotourism brand ‘Castelló Ruta de Sabor’ “to be a real boost for our producers”. With these fairs “we want to open the truffle to new consumers and with its marketing on a larger scale to strengthen the economy of the area”. Pérez hopes that “all participants become ambassadors of our land, conquering palates”.

80 PERCENT OF TRUFFLE EXHIBITORS

The municipalities accessing the subsidies will have to prove a direct link with the producing areas of this fungus and submit a project in which more than 80 percent of the exhibitors participating in the fair are from the truffle sector. The provincial corporation, has detailed Perez, will be responsible for part of the costs of the organization, the conditioning of the enclosure, the activities of dynamization and external promotion.

The award will be made according to technical criteria and will be approved by the Governing Board in the coming weeks.