The ninth Shrewsbury Food Festival is just weeks away from being held in Shrewsbury’s Quarry Park on the 25th and 26th June.
The Shropshire Festivals team will once again be providing a weekend of foodie, family entertainment, celebrating independent businesses and championing the local food and drink sector. For the first time, the food festival will be dropping all mainstream alcohol brands so only local, independent breweries, vineyards and distilleries will be championed.
The organisers are lining up over 200 food, drink, home and garden stalls, street food, plus beer, cider, wine, gin, and fizz bars. The Fibre Heroes Live Music Stage will host top local bands and children can enjoy a huge Serco Kids Zone with free activities.
Talented chefs from the region will be leading talks, demonstrations and cookalongs, and they will be joined for the weekend by multi-Michelin star and 5 out of 5 AA Rosette winning chef, Jean-Christophe Novelli.
Jean-Christophe will join The Hungry Guy, Stuart Collins, Andrew Birch, Gareth Howard, and Anna Christoforou on Saturday’s Chef Talks and Demo Stage. He and Stuart Collins will return again on the Sunday, along with the Beefy Boys, Chris Burt, James Sherwin and Eva Humphries. The stage is sponsored by The Shropshire Distillery.
Supporting Charities
Budding chefs can book in for a cookalong with a top chef, overseen by Festival Head Chef, Chris Burt. There is a small fee to book – all of which will be donated to Self Help Africa. Places can be booked online or first come first served on the day, if places remain.
Shropshire Festivals’ charity of the year, Lingen Davies Cancer Fund, will be in attendance to raise awareness and funds. They will be handing out sun cream and running a shopping creche - a handy place to leave your shopping bags whilst you go and get more!
Once again, the DogsTrust will be offering dog owners an hour’s dog free shopping with their dog creche service.
Jessica Heath, daughter of Shropshire Festivals’ owners Beth and Sid Heath, will be running the Fruit Monsters stand with her school friends. They will be selling fruit to raise money for The Harry Johnson Trust.
At the top of the Quarry, in the Field to Fork area, you can learn how to milk a cow, dare to eat edible insects in the name of sustainability or admire some machinery from Rea Valley Tractors, helping families learn about our agri-food sector.
The organisers promise their biggest STEM offering to date. Children can learn about computer aided product design, try out manufacturing a product, and experience mechanical engineering by designing and making a device to move sweets.
The Oteley Estate will be bringing along their iconic cattle and some piglets to help children understand where their meat comes from.
The popular Monks Home and Garden Area has been made a permanent fixture, giving shoppers a wider choice of stalls. Shoppers looking for a quieter moment can enjoy performances from ‘Get your Wigle On’ at the band stand family entertainment stage.
A First for the Food Festival
A Spitfire from the Royal Air Force Museum Midlands is stopping off at the Shrewsbury Food Festival during its tour.
Families are invited to get up close to the aircraft and hands-on with the interactive activities on the ground. You can don a battledress uniform, wartime flying jacket, pilot helmet and goggles, before taking a seat inside a replica cockpit for an authentic Spitfire experience.
This festival is a mammoth day out for all, with hundreds of stalls to peruse, demonstrations from top chefs, the Fibre Heroes Live Music Stage hosting top local bands all weekend (including Dirty Rockin Scoundrels, Chasing August and Lost The Plot); the Serco Kids’ Zone offering free activities, such as sporty fun, a circus big top, and an inflatable obstacle course; and an educational Field and Fork area with piglets, cows, alpacas and ducklings.
Beth Heath, Director of Fun for Shropshire Festivals, said, “Join us again for a beautiful, sunny weekend of amazing food, drink and entertainment. You will get so much more out of the festival than you will ever expect - try a glider simulation, visit the Marmite stand, enter a prison van, try axe throwing or challenge yourself to try every single food product in the festival! This is a must visit event this summer – there is something for everyone!”
For more information and to buy tickets visit shrewsburyfoodfestival.co.uk.
