Tradition and territory:the street food as a tool for promoting and enhancing tourism

Today’s stakeholders are now tending towards the use of models of consumption that are orientated to the satisfaction of material and immaterial needs, due to the modern economic innovations. Moreover, more attention has been paid to new and different ways of food marketing, aimed at reducing the gap between consumers and producers, with a special focus on the link to the territory. In line with the FAO definition, Street food is “ready-to-eat foods and beverages prepared and/or sold by vendors or hawkers, especially in the streets and other similar places”. About 2.5 billion people around the world consume street food every day, thanks to its low cost and easy availability. Moreover, Street food has an elevated socioeconomic value and many benefits i.e. preserving culture and food heritage, stimulating tourism and enhancing the link with the related territory. Indeed, street food attracts the tourist in search of cuisine culture and different flavours and contributes to the enhancement of a country’s tourism. However, the street food phenomenon also evidences not only the risk of a loss of territorial identity and impoverishment of the food variety offered, but also a decline in the quality of food also from the food safety point of view. Our study aims at drawing the readers’ attention to the street food phenomenon in Italy to avoid the current tendency towards the loss of flavour in typical street food and their Italian identity.