Kainuu O-Week's restaurant and café services offer varied food during the orienteering week
About the versatile services of the Kainuu Orienteering Week Competition Centre, the quality and supply of restaurant and café services in particular have long been the subject of significant development. For many years, Finland's biggest orienteering week has offered home-cooked lunch food, delicious café products, tasty barbecue dishes, varied “soup of the day” dishes and mouth-watering waffles or pancakes - once again this year.
- We have consciously developed Kainuu O-Week's restaurant and café services for the past 10 years so that we can serve our customers as comprehensively as possible, already at the competition centre. Aiming that orienteers could focus on the essentials, orienteering and holiday, says Jukka Liuha, Secretary General of Kainuu Orienteering Week.
- We strive to be able to offer as many dishes as possible for different kinds of customers, and to have enough versatile snack options so that recovery after the performance starts immediately. At the same time, the participants also save some time for holiday when they do not have to go hungry to look for a place to eat somewhere else, Liuha summarizes.
During the KOW2019-Sotkamo orienteering week, the Soup of the Day stand was built by hand on the middle of the field
Marika Paananen has been responsible for the development of Kainuu Orienteering Week's restaurant and café services since 2012. Today, Paananen already has experience in providing restaurant services for several dozen major international events, for example the Ruka Nordic, the opening weekend of the International Cross-Country Skiing World Cup in Ruka, Kuusamo.
Paananen says that the key criteria for Kainuu O-Week's restaurant and café are the quality of the service, the variety and freshness of the selection, the domestic nature of the food and the utilization and offering of local food and products.
- For the past 10 years, the Kainuu Orienteering Week restaurant has tried to make all the food offered at the competition centre directly on site at the competition centre. In practice, therefore, every serving of food that a customer buys from the competition centre is also prepared on-site. In the case of the Kainuu O-Week, it can be said that we offer real local food for the guests of the orienteering and holiday week, Paananen says with satisfaction.
Also this year, according to Paananen, who will be KOW's restaurant manager, the traditional orienteering week in Kainuu and Finland has managed to maintain a very affordable price level, compared to the quality of service, versatility and the fact that food is actually produced fresh on the spot at the competition centre.
Kainuu O-Week offers classic home-cooked lunches, among other things
- We are able to compete quite well, with the companies in the villages and towns, in the prices of food portions, even though they do not have nearly the same transport, construction and cooking costs as we have, Paananen explains.
- In practice, all the services of the Kainuu Orienteering Week Competition Centre, also the restaurant and café services, are built from scratch in the middle of the wilderness forest in Kainuu, Paananen explains.
Restaurant manager Marika Paananen at work during the KOW2016 orienteering week
- The price of a lunch portion in KOW 10 years ago (2012) was EUR 8.50 for adults and EUR 6 for children under 14-years-old. Last year, in 2021, the lunch portion for adults cost 10.00 euros and the portion for children was still the same 6 euros. Given how much prices have risen over the last ten years, for example in terms of materials, products and transport costs (fuels, etc.), it can be said that the prices of food at our competition centre restaurant are very low compared to the huge amount of work involved, Paananen sums up.
In the KOW café you can often smell a freshly baked cinnamon roll
For those arriving in Puolanka and Kainuu Orienteering Week 2022, Paananen has a one tip: It is worth to use the restaurant and café services of our competition centre as much as possible, because then you directly support the local orienteering clubs and local entrepreneurs organizing Kainuu Orienteering Week. This year, together with the volunteers of the Puolangan Ryhti association, we will build all the services of the competition centre and restaurant just for you, and we will also try to serve you in the best possible way.
We welcome all the guests of the orienteering and holiday week to Puolanka for orienteering in competition categories 8-95-years-old, recreational orienteering on top-quality open courses tracks, a holiday in the great scenery of Kainuu and to enjoy good food and the rich services of Kainuu Orienteering Week.
Read more: Kainuu O-Week 2022 offers large services in Competition Centre and top quality event arrangements
