Local food festivals are a vital part of the Welsh food and drink scene and are an important chance for the artisan food or drink producer to meet their customers face to face. But there are other important factors too.
The nature of the local food and drink producer’s jobs is rather a lonely one. So the producer has an idea about a new flavour, a new product, a new recipe, let’s call it newbie. Yes they try the newbie product themselves and no doubt their long suffering relatives and friends, but this cannot answer the important question, does the general public like the newbie?
A local food festival provides the ideal vehicle to see if the general public like the newbie. The producer does not have to make a huge number, maybe even having a few variables of the newbie.
Many will have heard of Innocent Drinks, now part of Coco Cola, but they started from this exact premise asking the public via yes and no waste bins at a festival, music in this case, to say if they liked the product. The rest is history.
Local food festivals are also useful to the public as well. Yes in your local supermarket they may occasionally have a demonstration from one of their suppliers, but normally we not have the chance to try something new. Because of this we tend to buy the same products as we have done over the past few weeks / months / years. Visiting a local food festival we have the chance to not only try one product but often a hundred plus. New flavours, new foods, new drinks all are possible and more than likely the vast majority of tastings are free.
As well as this superb opportunity for us to try new things we can also speak with, quite often, the producer themselves who can answer any question you have about their new product.
Even better than all these opportunities to try and taste is the fact that if you like the product and buy it, you are buying local. The money you spend at a local food festival is then going to be spent again locally helping to maintain an economically healthy local community. This is so much better than the money spent in the supermarket being lodged in overnight markets in Liechtenstein then ending up in the London financial markets.
Obviously local food festivals do not happen like magic, they take some considerable organising and do not happen without costs. Understandably many of the local food festivals do not charge us the public to try and buy the food, and drink and often provides local entertainment, see www.welshcountry.co.uk/melodious-voices-at-brecon-beacons-food-festival/ as an example, plus activities for the children, helping to make the festival a real day out.
In the past many local food festivals have had some minimal funding from Welsh Government. This year, 2023, it is rumoured that this funding will not happen, but not fully confirmed from the officialdom (Visit: www.welshfoodbites.co.uk/atisn-16790-food-festivals/), and yes understandable in that the Government has many demands on its limited purse. But what of the local food festival which is important to its particular local area or town?
Brecon Beacons Food Festival is run by volunteers and has been a feature of Brecon town centre events for over 20 years. Andrew Powell the event organiser is determined that the festival will not be killed off and has created a sponsorship package…Download the sponsorship package (PDF).
Local food festivals are an important link in
- Supporting the local food and drink producers
- Supporting the local area and community
- Providing us the general public the ability to try new food and drink tastes and products
- Providing us the general public an easy way of supporting local businesses
We cannot reiterate strongly enough that Welsh Country recognises the array of quality Welsh food and drink products and is more than proud to support the campaign to Buy Welsh – Buy Local
