Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality returned home with two big awards from Gourmand Awards 2023. The Metropolitan Municipality ranked 1st in the "Bread Book" category with its book "Balıkesir, City of Bread" and ranked 2nd in the "Mediterranean Books" category with its book "Balıkesir, Land of the Olive", demonstrating the power of Turkish Cuisine in the competition attended by 205 countries.

Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality is reaping the fruits of its efforts to highlight the city's food culture, product diversity and potential in these areas. In 2019, Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality won the first prize in the "cheese and milk" category of Gourmand Awards, the world's only international cookbook competition, with its book "Balıkesir, City of 50 Cheeses". This year, Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality honoured its country and Balıkesir by winning 1st and 2nd prizes with 2 books in 2 different categories. In the 29th Gourmand Awards Competition, the Metropolitan Municipality ranked 1st in the "Bread Book" category with its book "Balıkesir, City of Bread" and ranked 2nd in the "Mediterranean Books" category with its book "Balıkesir, Land of the Olive".

Serkan Akça, Head of Metropolitan Municipality Rural Services Department, who attended the organisation held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, on behalf of Yücel Yılmaz, Mayor of Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality, said: "We have finished both cheese, olive and bread books with intensive work for the last 3 years and our books have been published. In 2019, our book 'Balıkesir, City of 50 Cheeses' was selected 1st and received the 'Best of Best' award. This year, our book 'Balıkesir City of Bread' received the 1st prize in the category of bread books. Our book 'Balıkesir, Land of the Olive' was ranked 2nd in the 'Mediterranean Books' category. As Balıkesir, we are an olive land, we have 12 million olive trees. We have a very important position in olive production. We would like to thank Yücel Mayor, the leader of these efforts, for bringing us here. He paved the way for us and gave great support to our work."

EACH OF THE BOOKS THEY WROTE ABOUT BALIKESİR BROUGHT AWARDS

Berrin Bal Onur and Neşe Biber Aksoy, the authors of the books, who expressed their happiness of returning from the competition with 2 great awards, stated that they have received many great awards worldwide with their book studies on Balıkesir since 2019. Reminding that in 2019 they won 1st place in Gourmand Awards with their book "Balıkesir, City of 50 Cheeses", the authors said that they are now proud of winning 1st place in the "bread book" category with the book "Balıkesir, City of Bread" and 2nd place in the "Mediterranean Books" category with the book "Balıkesir, Land of the Olive" and thanked Yücel Yılmaz, Mayor of Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality and his team for all the opportunities and support they provided.