Festival Atmosphere

Festival Atmosphere

By Kelly Beatson

Food and seafood festivals happen all over the UK, providing an excellent opportunity for local businesses to engage with the public and showcase their produce. Visitors enjoy food and drinks stalls, samples, entertainment, cooking displays and interactive sessions often focused around education.

Lynn Gilmore, Seafish’s Head of International Trade and Regions explains:

Festivals like these provide a useful platform for seafood businesses to present their fantastic produce. Seafish sees events like these as an important opportunity to support the UK seafood industry in promoting fresh, local produce.

To find out more about how seafood businesses are using food festivals to connect with consumers Cutting Edge spoke to businesses showing at just a few of the many food festivals that run across the UK.

Portsmouth Seafood Festival

Three day event. 60,000 visitors

Following tremendous success in 2017 and 2018 the Portsmouth Seafood Festival was back in June for a third year.

Local seafood business Viviers (UK) Ltd are key partners in the festival. Angela Lloyd, Company Secretary, shares her enthusiasm for the event: “The festival provides a valuable opportunity for seafood businesses to promote their products to a large targeted audience.”

Iain Spink of Arbroath Smokies agrees:

Attending the festival gave me a fantastic opportunity to showcase my product to a whole new, very appreciative, foodie audience.

“As my business relies mainly on direct sales on the day, the considerable number of customers through the gates ensured that I had a truly memorable first experience at the event. It was my first time south of the border to present Arbroath Smokies commercially and it certainly won’t be my last!”

Seafish Ambassadors CJ Jackson, CEO of Billingsgate Seafood School, and Mike Warner, ex-fisherman, food writer and fisheries journalist, supported the event with seafood cookery and interactive demonstrations.

“I’m always delighted to join Mike and the Seafish team in promoting great British seafood. The focus is to show how easy it can be to cook many types of seafood. There are so many types of fish and shellfish on offer. It’s all about building the consumers’ confidence to try something new.” explains CJ Jackson.

Seafood cookery demonstration by CJ Jackson and Mike Warner

Balmoral Show

Four day event. 120,000 visitors

In recent years Balmoral Show, organised by the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society (RUAS), has been increasingly utilised by local seafood producers to promote the best of local seafood provided by the Northern Irish industry.

This year Sea Source, a local fisherman’s cooperative, presented cookery demonstrations, a samples area and a display case with locallycaught produce for sale.

“The show has been a great success,” says Alan McCulla, Chief Executive Officer of ANIFPO and Sea Source. “It provides an unparalleled opportunity to showcase the local fishing industry.”

Alan goes on to say that the Balmoral Show is a permanent feature on Sea Source’s annual calendar. “Our members benefit from the important new business opportunities we develop at the show, both domestically and overseas.”

As a result of public interest and business interactions in previous years, Sea Source has successfully opened a seafood shop in Kilkeel and created a new global spin-off business, the “Irish Sea Food Company” which delivers fresh seafood to Abu Dhabi and Dubai. These new business ventures highlight the value of networking and business visibility at the show.

Local politicians visiting the stand.

Another fresh local seafood display, provided by George S Cully and Son for the Seafish stand, was a tremendous talking point during the show attracting crowds of adults and children alike.

Hal Dawson, Master Filleter, dropped by the stand and wowed the crowds with his knowledge of various fish and shellfish species, showcasing filleting and cooking techniques.

“This year there was a great level of visitor engagement with many reporting they tried new products and species and expressing a strong interest in trying locally sourced seafood,” explains Hal.

Annika Clements, Seafish Northern Ireland Regional Manager agrees. “The show offers seafood businesses an excellent opportunity for cooperation and joint promotion of fresh, Northern Irish seafood.”

Hal Dawson and Seafish's Annika Clements

Dorset Seafood Festival

Three day event. 50,000 visitors

The Dorset Seafood festival prides itself in offering the public a great opportunity to learn about the superb seafood available just off our wonderful shores.

“Dorset Seafood Festival is fantastic as it affords us the opportunity to showcase everything we are proud of,” says Sean Cooper, Owner of Weyfish, who supplied the Seafish stand with a variety of fresh caught seafood from the local area.

Sean goes on to say: “Visitors to the festival were very interested in learning more about the variety and seasonality of the locally caught seafood available.”

Interactive sessions hosted in the Seafish demonstration kitchen attracted large crowds each day. Similar to other food festivals that Seafish attends, Seafish Ambassadors CJ Jackson, CEO of Billingsgate Seafood School, and Mike Warner, ex-fisherman, food writer and fisheries journalist, supported the event with seafood cookery and interactive demonstrations.

Mike Warner explains: “For me, the festival is an ideal platform to reinforce what I do in connecting the UK consumer to our fishing and seafood industries. The more exposure I can get to help educate, inform and enthuse people as to how our seasonal, sustainable seafood is produced, the better.”

In addition to the cookery demos Adrian Bartlett, of The Crabstock Boys, demonstrated crab picking and dressing.

“This was a great opportunity to share my knowledge and passion, to show how good UK shellfish is to eat and how easy it is to pick a crab without fear.”

Gus Caslake, Seafish South West Regional Manager, says: “The Festival provides an invaluable showcase for seafood. The engagement with the public and local seafood businesses is excellent and seems to improve year on year.”

Check out these sites to see what food festivals are on near you:

www.eatdrinkseek.co.uk

www.foodfestivalfinder.co.uk

www.thefestivalcalendar.co.uk