Accrington Food Festival 2016

Saturday 4th June saw the 2016 Accrington Food and Drink Festival. North Lancs Training Group were proud to be Gold sponsors of the event this year and helping it to be the success it was. As the festival was lnked with the centenary of WW1, NLTG had a mock field kitchen set up where we had trench stew and turnip bread tasters available for people to try.

We also had our Recruitment team there on the day to talk to the public about what Appreticehsips and courses are available for the local community.

On the main stage was two of our Catering and Hospitality tutors who demonstrated to the crowd how to make the stew and the bread again with free samples for people to try.

Below is an extract form the Accrington Observer about the day.

Thousands of people soaked up the sun as they enjoyed the Accrington Food and Drink Festival.

The town centre was packed with attractions, including dozens of food stalls with delicacies from across the world and demonstrations by celebrity chef Richard Fox.

To commemorate the centenary of the Accrington Pals’ sacrifice at the Battle of the Somme, actors the History Men dressed as Pals soldiers and the festival also featured a Spitfire on display outside the Town Hall and a live WW2 re-enactment at St James’ Church.

Council leader Miles Parkinson said it was a ‘huge success’.

He said: “The sunshine broughout out the crowds and it was nice to see all the hard work by the organisers pay off. It was great to see so many people in the town centre and try some of the delights on offer. It is getting bigger every year and with the future developments planned for outside the Town Hall and Market Hall and the redevelopment of the Peel Street bus station site that will bring more space in future years.”

The free festival featured more than 75 stalls of the finest food and drink from France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Mexico, Malaysia, Nigeria, India and beyond.

Live cookery demonstations were held on Broadway by celebrity chef Richard Fox and local chefs from the North Lancs Training Group and The Whitakers Arms.

Youngsters enjoyed taking part in a ‘bug’ themed Cakelicious children’s cake decorating competition in Accrington Market Hall and a Dig For Victory seedling planting activity with Incredible Edibles and the Sandy Lane Gardening Group.

Hyndburn Mayor Tim O’Kane said it was a ‘brilliant event’.

He said: “There were loads of people there and the weather was absolutely fantastic. I particularly liked the WW2 re-enactment and the WW1 soldiers. There was a great selection of food and it was great to speak to the French, Italian and German stallholders. We had a wonderful day and thoroughly enjoyed it.”

Murray Dawson, Managing Director of Scott Dawson Advertising who organised and ran the food festival, said: “I’m immensely proud that we were able to help Accrington by bringing around 14,000 people into the town centre through Scott Dawson’s Community Pride Initiative. It’s a massive boost for town centre businesses. Every year we try to do a bit more and it’s satisfying to see the numbers of people enjoying the food festival increase from last year. Equally it’s important to us to keep the event steady and not expand too much – we’re committed to the stallholders we attract and the town centre businesses to ensure they all benefit from the event. We work in partnership with Hyndburn Council to run the food festival, with the aim of helping them save £21,000 over three years by taking on the responsibility of running the event. It’s important to us to keep the food festival a free event. We’re very grateful to our gold sponsors Simon Jersey and North Lancs Training Group for their support in making the event sustainable. In addition to all the fantastic flavours and smells of the food festival, we also paid our respects to The Accrington Pals through the World War 2 re-enactment, the Spitfire display and wartime food too. It truly was a great day.”