The mission of the D.O.Saimaa — Food&Culture project is to promote food culture and gastronomy in Finland and Saimaa. The aim is to raise the value of artisan food, good service and local raw materials, as well as to highlight the importance of food culture in our region and the importance of food together. The D.O.Saimaa — Food&Culture project will make South Savo and Saimaa a well-known and attractive food tourism area — domestically and internationally — by creating a comprehensive network of high-quality, authentic food tourism services that meet our international standard and are easy to buy all year round and promote the recognition and introduction of the D.O.Saimaa quality and origin label. The project promotes cooperation, know-how and growth between local raw material producers and tourism operators.The project measures consist of the following areas:1. Promoting Saimaa’s food culture and increasing tourism income2. Extension of the use of the D.O.Saimaa mark and promotion of reputation3. Increased cross-sectoral cooperation4. Improving business skills and framework conditions5. As a result of the project, new seasonal food events and thematic cuisine weeks have become part of the operations of companies and business networks. These have led to the emergence of new tourist seasons and to the extension of the current seasons. As a result, year-round jobs have increased and new solutions have been found to address the challenges of labour availability. Finland and Saimaa are known nationally and internationally as an area based on their own food culture, authentication and locality, where cooperation between operators across industry boundaries enables growth and internationalisation. The new cooperation networks and operational and logistics models created during the project will remain alive between producers of raw materials and tourist entrepreneurs. As a result of the project, the Food&Culture experience services have evolved to a new level and the availability of services has stabilised on-line channels. The project has contributed to the fact that the design and implementation of the International Culinary Institute has started in cooperation with the institutions already operating in the region. The role of the project is to bring the needs and know-how of companies into the development process and to utilise existing international cooperation networks that are created during the project.