ABERGAVENNY FOOD FESTIVAL 2007

FESTIVAL NEWS 2007

Big Food Debate (logo) Growing Food Festivals/
Changing British Food Culture

Friday 14 September 2007, 10.00am - 5.00pm
The Hill Education & Conference Centre,
Pen-y-Pound, Abergavenny

Press Release

20th June 2007

Both renowned for their tireless investigations into important food related issues, The Food Programme’s Sheila Dillon and writer Joanna Blythman will headline the first conference in the eight-year history of the Abergavenny Food Festival.

The Big Food Debate will challenge those who run and promote Food Festivals and others concerned with the British food scene to consider whether festivals are mere fads for affluent foodies or whether they can have a real impact on food culture.

The event is sponsored by Miller Research UK Ltd, specialist research and evaluation consultancy company, and supported by adventa, Monmouthshire’s Leader + rural development programme.. Their spokeswoman, Louise McGuinness, said: "As the leading event of its kind in the UK, the Abergavenny Food Festival is not only a celebration of all aspects of good food and eating, but has always been interested in helping to change the way people see, appreciate and value food. The aim of this conference is to stimulate a lively debate about whether Food Festivals genuinely can help create a distinctive local food culture, become more sustainable, contribute to the local economy and have a wider impact in British food culture."

Entitled 'Growing Food Festivals/Changing British Food Culture', the conference is aimed at those running food festivals, organisations promoting them or thinking of setting up their own festival, and producers, retailers, journalists and researchers involved in the British Food Scene.

It will be held on Friday 14th September, the day before the start of the Abergavenny Food Festival, from 10am to 4pm at The Hill Education & Conference Centre, Abergavenny. , at £75 per person, will include refreshments, lunch and an entry pass to the Food Festival.

The conference will be chaired by Sheila Dillon, the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme and creator of Veg Talk, Radio 4's interactive grocery show. She has won awards for investigative reporting and features about topics such as BSE, the development of organic farming, bio-engineered foods and supermarket power. Last year she won the prestigious Glenfiddich Award for best broadcast for a programme on food and poverty, produced by Jessica Mitchell.

The conference’s Key Note Speaker is investigative journalist, broadcaster and food campaigner Joanna Blythman (pictured left), an advocate of the benefits of good food and three-times winner of a Glenfiddich Award. She contributes to The Guardian, Waitrose Food Illustrated and Scotland's Sunday Herald and has also written a series of books: The Food We Eat, How To Avoid gm Foods and The Food Our Children Eat.

The Big Food Debate will be a unique opportunity to meet people who are running food festivals, as well as others concerned with the direction British food culture is going in, to make new contacts and broaden horizons. It will be a serious event, but as with everything the Abergavenny Food Festival does, there will be an element of fun and enjoyment.

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For further information please contact:

Sharon Chilcott, PR Consultant to adventa. Tel: 01989 770199 (mobile 07990 765351)

or Louise McGuinness, adventa’s festival and events officer. Tel: 01873 736035

Adventa (logo) Miller Research (logo)