Who is the Personal Food Shopper?
The Personal Food Shopper is today a highly sought-after profession, but also a benchmark for local tourist boards, who rely on him to lead "guests," from all over the world, on a discovery of itineraries designed on flavors Of a place.
He is responsible for leading us on an exciting journey, made up of flavors but also stories, tales, traditions of a territory and its inhabitants.
The Personal Food Shopper Is a real expert connoisseur of food and wine excellence of an area and has a network of contacts with small producers, short supply chains, and small gastronomic companies.
Where does he find employment?
The Personal Food Shopper can find employment with wineries, tourism companies, hotels, event organization agencies or offer themselves as freelancers.
What are the skills of a Personal Food Shopper?
The Personal Food Shopper Has knowledge that is both specific and cross-cutting:
- makes sure to make the tourist's experience unique;
- possesses perfect geographical, historical and food and wine knowledge of the area;
- Has perfect knowledge of the supply chains;
- Builds, manages, maintains and engages a network of specific and selected contacts;
- always designs new routes and experiences to offer guests;
- knows typical markets, historic stores, and renowned bistros;
- Provides gastronomic advice;
- accompanies food lovers on tours and tasting events;
- Offers advice on the purchase of typical products;
- is a storyteller of product stories, trivia, anecdotes and thus has strong communication skills;
- Has strong problem solving skills to cope with any last-minute unexpected events.
Italian Food Academy: the course to become a Personal Food Shopper
Far from being a profession that can be done improvisationally, for become a Personal Food Shopper, in addition to having an innate passion for food and the traditions of a region or area, must possess and acquire specific skills.
Italian Food Academy, training institution in the haute cuisine sector, catering and food communication, organizes a specific course for those who intend become a personal food shopper, both in classroom and online versions.
The course includes several stages:
- Preparatory lessons with home study on texts and online platform
- 20-hour online course to the HACCP Certificate of 3°level
- German Language Online Course
- Classroom phase lasting 40 hours + educational outing
- 150-hour internship (for those under the age of 40.
The educational program of IFA's Personal Food Shopper course.
The educational program addresses a number of dedicated topics:
- Legislation and copyright
- The Creative Writing
- Job classification
- Food and Wine Mapping
- Agricultural and food production
- Sustainability and biodiversity
- Communicate and narrate
- Tourism sociology
- The tourist point of view
- How to organize Food and wine events
- Web Communication and Facebook page creation
- Customer satisfaction
- Marketing plan (B2B)
- Communication plan
