Culinary Action!, the entrepreneurship area of the Basque Culinary Center (BCC), has been distinguished by the European Commission with one of the European Enterprise Promotion Awards 2021, in the category of promotion of the entrepreneurial spirit, one of the six modalities awarded by these awards. The award does not have any economic endowment, although it is an international recognition of the first order, according to the BCC, the gastronomic university that this year celebrates its tenth anniversary.

Culinary Action! it was chosen in the category of entrepreneurship for being "a project that contributes to creating new business models for gastronomy", at the same time that "it provides training and supports the professionalization of the sector". Culinary Action!, created in 2014, has gone from being the national gastronomic entrepreneurship acceleration program to becoming a European reference agent with continuous actions in various international ecosystems, such as Madrid, France and Tel Aviv.

The Director of Global Development of the Basque Culinary Center, Asier Alea, said upon receiving the award that it is "a recognition of the work done over seven years together with startups and gastronomic entrepreneurs and the evolution of this initiative, as well as a boost in the international projection of Culinary Action!".

The jury stressed that the Basque Culinary Center is "helping to find circular economy solutions to the challenges of food sustainability and to create an environment where experts, suppliers, producers, chefs and consumers can jointly create solutions to reactivate local gastronomy and educate citizens about sustainability".

To reach the final, the project had to compete with more than 200 organizations from 28 different countries, of which a total of 18 (three per category) reached the final, as inspiring examples of entrepreneurship and initiatives favorable to SMEs in Europe.