Experts take over the smokehouse: Want to tame negative tourist footprint
The article was published in Danish in Bornholms Tidende on June 17, 2026.
Do you have good ideas on how to reduce the negative tourist footprint on Bornholm? Then on Friday, there is the opportunity to meet with some of the world’s leading experts in sustainable tourism at Gudhjem Smokehouse.
Ahead of the Food Festival and the cooking competition Sol over Gudhjem, researchers from Lund and the University of Copenhagen, together with Gourmet Bornholm, are hosting a large EU meeting in the Food Culture House in Melsted.
Here, experts from 15 different organisations in 10 different EU countries will discuss how tourists can contribute to more sustainable practices in tourist destinations. This is part of Verne, which is an international research project headed by Professor Bent Egberg Mikkelsen.
EU Verne is a three-year EU project that investigates more circular and gentler ways of thinking about tourism. It runs in the period 2024–2027, and Bornholm is one of five pilot projects. The meeting concludes with a panel debate in the smokehouse in Gudhjem, which is open to everyone.
Invented the FoodSchool in Nexø Verne Denmark is the culmination of many years of research into food and eating habits, where Bent Egberg Mikkelsen has repeatedly used Bornholm as an example when it comes to understanding why we eat the way we do.
– We started on Bornholm almost 20 years ago, greatly helped along the way by local forces, including local shops, schools, institutions and the municipality. We established a team with AAU, the Steno Center for Health Promotion, and the Research Center for Prevention and Health, and raised money for a project that would look at what local community actors can do to help families and not least young people to live healthier, says Bent Egberg Mikkelsen, professor at Lund University.
“Bent is a great researcher who has had his heart on Bornholm for 20 years. He was involved in the health project SoL – health and community, which ran for many years and was rewarded with more awards. He is passionate about his things”, says Peter Funch, who is the moderator of the panel debate.
One of the results of Mikkelsen’s work is the FoodSchool at Paradisbakkeskolen in Nexø. Here, he and a group of researchers, together with teachers and students, started developing sketches for what later became a nationally known FoodSchool.
Sustainable tourism An important task for the Verne project is to prevent overtourism and promote circular thinking, says project coordinator Edgar Valverde from the institute PNO based on the northern coast of Barcelona, who is the project’s coordinator. “I myself come from a city that is in the process of discussing a new and more regenerative approach to tourism. Therefore, I am also pleased that Bornholm is proactive and is starting this discussion about a new circular way of thinking about tourism when it comes to the gastronomic”, he says.
One of the focus areas of the project is to support the work of making it easier to make the circular choice as a tourist. According to Mikkelsen, this will be done by building on already existing infrastructure in collaboration with Gourmet Bornholm.
And now, halfway through the project period, something has already happened at Gourmet Bornholm’s office in Madkulturhuset. “Our digital food platform and new website already make it easier to find local foods and food experiences. Together with Verne, we will now look at how we can expand and strengthen the digital tools”, says Pelle Nybirk, Head of Secretariat at Gourmet Bornholm.
The meeting in Gudhjem ends with a panel debate at Gudhjem Smokehouse on Friday 19 June, as a prelude to the cooking competition Sol Over Gudhjem.
Georgios Charalampous, Programme Manager at the European Research Agency (REA), opens the debate with a presentation on the growing challenge of tourists and travellers who are increasingly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. They use electricity, they fly and drive, and last but not least, tourists put pressure on local areas and local food production. This has created a growing discussion, both among researchers at the international level, but also in the media and among residents, local politicians and businesses in the popular tourist destinations about how tourism can give something back to local communities. That discussion now comes to Gudhjem.
The panel consists of Pelle Nybirk, head of the secretariat of Gourmet Bornholm, Bent Egberg Mikkelsen, professor at the University of Lund, Helle Munk Ravnborg, municipal councillor of BRK, and project coordinator Edgar Valverde from PNO Barcelona. The debate is entitled “Food for circular thoughts – how do we cater for the sustainable tourists and travelers of tomorrow”. The debate will last from 11.15-12.00.
