RAFAEL Project

Welcome to RAFAEL, a new exciting project to support and promote ‘authentic’ food in different regions of the Atlantic coastal area of Europe. The project is being delivered by organisations from nine regions in Spain, Portugal, France and the United Kingdom who share a passion for ‘authentic’ food and whose landscapes entirely reflect their systems of food production. The partners from each of the nine regions work closely together to share experience and expertise and promote the cultural identity of the ‘Atlantic Arc’ Area through its authentic produce.

Funding for the project comes from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) INTERREG III B program, the participating partners and their associate partners. Whether you’re a producer, a food processing business, a local resident or a visitor, this website has lots of interesting information for you on the concept of authentic food, what is happening in each of the participating regions, project activities and how you can get involved.

What is authentic food?

Authentic food is food that is locally grown and sold, and is linked to the natural, cultural and historical assets of the region. Authentic food comes from sustainable farming and processing systems, often certified organic and can be traced along the food chain. It is concerned with people, those who produce and process the food, ensuring good work ethics and fair-trade, and the people consuming the food, so that they receive high quality, healthy and safe food that has been produced GM fee and to high animal welfare standards. The concept of food covered by this project includes every kind of raw and processed food from the wide climatic diversity of the participating regions. The project focuses on land based production systems and includes all parts of the food chain from production, processing, marketing, retailing, consumption and associated products and activities such as agri-tourism.