The Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County have launched an updated Adirondack Cuisine Trails platform through its flagship Adirondack Harvest program. This will make it easier than ever for visitors and residents to discover the farms, markets, restaurants, and agricultural experiences that celebrate the Adirondacks’ local food culture.
The refreshed digital platform offers a more intuitive way to explore the six suggested routes throughout the Lake Champlain, Whiteface, Saranac Lake, Lake Clear, Lake Placid, Tupper Lake, and Clinton County regions. Visitors can use the trails as self-guided culinary adventures, traveling at their own pace and choosing particular stops along the way. The new platform also features interactive mapping and navigation capabilities, allowing users to easily view participating locations on a map, find nearby trail stops, access directions, and navigate between each stop directly from their mobile device. Travelers are encouraged to check business hours and seasonal offerings before visiting, as many farms and businesses operate on seasonal schedules.
“With 12 million annual visitors to the Adirondacks, we cannot overstate the tremendous potential for tourism to positively impact our region's economy. In that way, the new digital platform will provide a level of interactivity from the public to our local farms, producers, farm-to-table retailers, and restaurants,” said Adirondack Harvest Program Lead, Isabella Susino. “The ongoing development of the Adirondack Cuisine Trails includes in-app promotions from trail members to increase visibility of their farm stores and our regional farmers markets, new printed materials, location check-ins, and much more."
The trails showcase the diversity of Adirondack agriculture and invite visitors to experience the region beyond the plate. Along the way, travelers can tour working farms, meet local producers, sample handcrafted cheeses and maple products, browse farmers markets, visit orchards and greenhouses, and enjoy seasonal experiences that celebrate the region's agricultural heritage.
"The six Adirondack Cuisine Trails are a truly unique project designed to elevate the role of agritourism in the larger Adirondack experience. Visitors to the park are enamored with the authenticity of the North Country, and we feel that the trails are well-positioned to provide a meaningful experience for our guests, our farmers, and producers," said Susino.
The Adirondack Cuisine Trails were established in 2018 by the Adirondack Cuisine Trail Network, a nonprofit coalition of local food partners formed to develop and administer six culinary trails across Essex, Clinton, and Franklin counties. Once the trails were established, its mission expanded to highlight Adirondack and North Country farms, food producers, farm-to-table restaurants, and retailers, encouraging visitors and residents to explore the region through its local food culture.
Working closely with Adirondack Harvest, a nonprofit marketing initiative founded in 2001 to promote local farmers and food producers, the cuisine trails quickly became a popular self-guided culinary experience. In 2021, Adirondack Harvest assumed leadership of the Adirondack Cuisine Trails and has continued to grow the initiative while advancing its mission of supporting local farms, food producers, farm-to-table retailers, and restaurants throughout the region.
The enhanced platform also creates new opportunities for participating farms and businesses to showcase seasonal offerings, new products, special events, and promotions. Updated user and location analytics will help ROOST and Adirondack Harvest better understand how visitors engage with the trails, providing valuable insights to strengthen future agritourism marketing efforts and economic viability for the region’s farmers and producers.
"The Adirondack Cuisine Trails celebrate the incredible diversity of farms, food producers, and culinary businesses that make our region unique," said ROOST’s Southern Essex County Regional Manager, Isabelle Bureau. "Our goal is to grow awareness of local food and agriculture while encouraging visitors and residents to support the farms and businesses that make the Adirondacks such a vibrant place to explore."
To learn more and begin exploring the Adirondack Cuisine Trails, visit adirondackcuisinetrail.com/ or adirondackharvest.com. Businesses interested in cuisine trail membership should visit adirondackharvest.com/membership or call (518) 962-4810.
The Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism is a destination marketing and management organization that leads tourism initiatives in Essex and Hamilton counties, along with the Adirondack communities of Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, and Tupper Lake. ROOST’s mission is to enhance the quality of life for residents by managing and diversifying the region’s tourism economy while promoting sustainable visitation.
A program of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County, Adirondack Harvest is dedicated to strengthening the local food system across the greater Adirondack and North Country region by connecting farmers, producers, businesses, and consumers. Through education, marketing, and community partnerships, Adirondack Harvest promotes local agriculture and expands access to locally grown food to visitors and residents alike.