Innovating Traditional Cuisine: A Training Approach to Preserving and Developing Local Food Products

Abstract

Traditional culinary innovation training plays an important role in preserving localculture and developing food products based on local raw materials. This study aims toexplore the effectiveness of traditional culinary innovation training in preserving anddeveloping local food products and understand its impact on culinary entrepreneurs.This study uses a qualitative approach with a participatory method involvingparticipant observation, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions (FGD), anddocumentation during training. The study subjects included culinary entrepreneurs,homemakers, and local community members participating in the culinary innovationtraining program. Meanwhile, this study's research object was traditional culinaryitems made from local ingredients and eight menus. The study results showed that thistraining improved participants' abilities to create culinary innovations with localingredients and enriched their creativity in developing variations of culinary productsthat have added value. In addition, this training increased participants' awareness ofthe importance of preserving traditional cuisine as a cultural heritage that can supportlocal food security and strengthen product competitiveness in the market. Dataanalysis using thematic techniques also revealed the challenges faced by participants,including limited access to quality raw materials and obstacles in product marketing.