Nantwich Food Festival is here!

Yes, after a weird summer, we are delighted that Nantwich Food Festival is just round the corner to delight us all; the festival returns from Friday 30th August - Sunday 1st September and is jam-packed with high quality exhibitors and entertainment.

Festival Friday starts at 11am with a quiet hour for those who want or need to browse the stalls in both marquees without the crowds. Then Friday continues from 12MD to 8pm with food, drinks, live music and lots of entertainment; town centre entertainment starts at 11.30am and runs until 8pm, whilst the Reaseheath Food Theatre has chef demonstrations from 12md and these continue through the weekend.

Festival Saturday runs from 9am – 7pm, so expect more Festival fabulousness with great exhibitors, celebrity and local chefs, and wonderful live music; Festival Sunday is 10am- 5pm, with the earlier closing time enabling the Festival team to start the massive clear up task.

Some town centre car parks need to close to allow space for marquees and all the exhibitors; signs have been up since early August, giving good notice of these closures that will run from 6pm Tuesday 27^th August until 5pm Monday 2^nd September – yes within 24 hours of the Festival finishing, the car parks will again be available for use, and the town centre clean and tidy again.

Due to the reduced availability of town centre parking, Festival organisers are urging visitors to use public transport, or the Festival Park & Ride scheme – which operates from Brine Leas Academy, Barony Park and Nantwich Football Club on all Festival days. However please note that the Park & Ride does not operate from Nantwich Football Ground on Festival Saturday due to a match fixture.

Providing the Park & Ride scheme makes travel into the town centre environmentally healthier and less fraught for everyone. The scheme is free to users, but a recommended donation of just £3 per vehicle helps to support this important facility and local charities.

Disabled parking and disabled access buses will operate from the Barony Park & Ride location only and there will be disabled parking at Dysart Buildings Car park too.

Direct Access, a Nantwich business, will again provide a calm area throughout the weekend over at the Love Lane end of the town to help anyone in need of peace and quiet; this worked so well over the last two years that Festival organisers are delighted to have their support again.

Turning now to the all important public loos! In addition to the Festival loos, there are public loos next to the market, plus the Nantwich Town Council ‘Comfort Scheme’ whereby 12 participating local cafes etc allow visitors to use their loo – just look out for the posters.

Volunteers will be readily visible in their high viz jackets; they’re the go-to people for Festival brochures, information and directions to anywhere and anything in Nantwich. They have attended their training just days before the Festival kicks off, so are up to date on safety issues, and will be ready to deal with any queries; right in the town centre there will also be an information stand.

All the Festival team members are volunteers; after all, Nantwich Food Festival is all about the local community. The team is grateful to local organisations Morrison’s supermarket and St Mary’s Church, Nantwich for allowing the use of their car park and grassed area respectively; we know that St Mary’s Church Rector is grateful for the generosity of donations from visitors.

Safety is always high on the agenda for Nantwich Food Festival, so to complement the Festival Volunteers, there are the Health and Safety team, the Staff Solutions Group First aiders and local police. Two First Aid areas within the town centre will enable a quick response to any incidents.

Simon Walter of Rhino Safety keeps a close eye on absolutely everything; he ensures that all safety systems are in place and closely monitors events throughout the weekend eg ensuring that marquees don’t become overcrowded. He doesn't approve the Festival to open until all safety and hygiene inspections are satisfactory on Festival Friday morning.

Two music stages are in place, sponsored by Snugbury’s and Nantwich Hearing Centre, with live music to appeal to all tastes throughout the weekend; Cheshire’s Silk 106.9 will be at the helm, ensuring that the transition between musicians works seamlessly. Expect to enjoy many great acts including: Gemma Rose, Baxter, Tokyo Misfires, Claudia Fenoglio plus many more solo artists and bands – you will be spoilt for choice.

Oscar Phillips, great lead singer for The Dodgems will feature solo plus with the band; expect indie rock, young, very talented and loads of energy.

On Saturday afternoon do watch The Savaloys, who made quite a name for themselves in the late 80s on the South Bucks indie scene; now back together with a new drummer, new songs but the same trademark passion. They expertly craft indie/rock/goth classics – definitely one to catch. We are also delighted to have Vavoom playing Saturday evening and Shakermaker on Sunday evening.

Find out all the great line-up for music and much more at: 

https://www.nantwichfoodfestival.co.uk/eventslist/

The chef demonstrations are bound to be popular with all taking place in the Reaseheath Food Theatre, Love Lane, so whatever the weather, you can watch the demos under cover.

Festival organisers were disappointed to hear this month that Jon Watts could no longer attend – unfortunately the news came through after all the brochures were printed, but no sooner was his cancellation confirmed, chef organiser, Karen Young leapt into action and has booked the talented chef and teacher Bhupinder Virdee Lace, who will cook a tasty lentil dish.

If you want to know how to get bags of flavour into your veggie or vegan dishes, be sure to watch Bhupinder at 1pm Festival Friday. She has a great ‘Love Food, Hate Waste’ pedigree and is renowned for creating fantastic meals from leftovers – exactly what we need to know in these challenging financial times.

She also offers cookery lessons featuring recipes from her book, “A TASTE OF THE PUNJAB” in her semi professional kitchen in Chester or in your own kitchen within the locality. Interested? Then just contact her directly on Bhupinder.lace@googlemail.com or 07763 583820.

Immediately after Bhupinder, Stavros, the head chef from multi award-winning St Marthas will showcase his talent – we are delighted to see him return this year, then to finish the Friday line-up, comes an air fryer cookery demo, so if you’ve bought an air fryer and aren’t making enough use of it, do catch Jill Weatherburn’s demo.

On Festival Saturday if you love cooking, you won’t want to leave the demonstration marquee due to the amazing talented chefs on offer; Celebrity Chef Nigel Brown returns to demonstrate his talents, after which he will compere other demos.

Chris Bavin – another Celebrity Chef with a great history dating back over a decade of encouraging us to ‘eat well for less’ will demonstrate twice on Saturday. Chris started his career in fresh produce by working with growers, supplying wholesale markets; you may recall ‘The Naked Grocer’ many years ago, one of the very first zero packaging, no plastic retail businesses, which he ran for nine years.

Chris has been on our TV screens for years and has produced some wonderful cookbooks – the most recent being ‘Fakeaway’. His demos are sure to be fun, fast and with standing room only!

Karen is delighted that Babna of Babna’s Patisserie, who was so popular last year, has agreed to return to create another of her spectacular creations; Babna says “My dream is to produce beautiful French desserts that can be shared with all - desserts that have exquisite flavours and textures. I call it ‘French desserts made easy’.

Nigel Brown returns on Sunday, plus will – somehow – make time to lead a Cookalong masterclass. Unfortunately Elliott Hill is unable to join us this year on Festival Sunday as planned, but The Chester Grosvenor will be ably represented by Neil Aitken; Neil says “I am a Scottish chef and I have worked for 7 years at the Chester Grosvenor hotel; I’m currently Sous Chef at the fine dining restaurant Arkle within the hotel. I have previously worked in many Michelin stars restaurants both in Scotland and England.”

New-to-Nantwich and the final Celebrity Chef in our line-up, Cherish Finden will demonstrate on Festival Sunday and will later judge the cake competition, so expect very high standards for the judging as her attention to detail is famously second to none!  

In her time as Executive Pastry Chef at London’s Langham Hotel, Cherish created a cake replica of Windsor castle for the Queen’s 90^th birthday, as well as a gravity-defying edible hat for Royal Ascot! We can’t wait to see her in action at Nantwich. If all this isn’t enough, Reaseheath chefs will also demonstrate on Saturday and Sunday.

This year, in support of the Festival’s approach towards inclusivity, there will again be sign language interpretation for some of the celebrity chef demonstrations; keep an eye out for the schedule on Festival social media.

The Festival cannot forget its younger visitors, so is pleased to report that again Whitegates Kids Marquee (Kids Corner) will host a whole variety of craft activities. The Dabber Bear town trail leaflets can be collected from the kids marquee or the information point in town. 

The kids activities supervised by Festival Volunteers will include:

• Gingerbread decorating (‘naked’ versions donated by Chatwins Bakery) 
• Milk bottle elephants
• Butterfly rings
• Blow paint monsters
• Finger print magnets
• Banjo lids & crocodile castanets
• Lolly stick fans

The activities will be free, but the volunteers will be pleased to collect monetary donations to go to the Nantwich Foodbank.

There will be a mini disco (bubbles and music) every afternoon 4:30-5pm for children to attend while the volunteers tidy up the marquee. Hopefully there will be some children's yoga sessions too, so look out for this being advertised.

We are pleased to say that the much-anticipated return of Cookalong still has some places available for masterclasses where visitors can produce meals under the tuition of professional chefs; just go to: 

https://www.nantwichfoodfestival.co.uk/cookalong/

...to book your place.

A non-glamorous, but key issue is that of Festival waste disposal; Nantwich Food Festival has teamed up with ASH Waste Management to encourage greater recycling and less waste going into landfill this year. As we all try to move towards a better environment, the organisers are asking for the help of festival goers when it comes to the disposal of waste.

Each area of the Festival will now have bin hubs for the collection of waste food, dry recyclable’s (glass, paper, card and plastic) and general waste. Please do your bit for the environment and help by disposing of any waste in the appropriate labelled bin.

Thanks to your help with this important issue we hope to put at least 95% of the festival waste to good use.

For up to date information go to #nantwichfoodfestival or the Festival website: 

www.nantwichfoodfestival.co.uk

Yes, the Nantwich Food Festival is well and truly ready for action!