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North Yorkshire’s biggest free festival this Sunday

ByEmily

Jun 2, 2017

North Yorkshire’s biggest free food and live music festival returns for its sixth successful year this month, boasting a range of foodie and musical treats

The multi-award-winning Homegrown Food Festival, in Northallerton, will be held at the Applegarth on Sunday June 25th.

UK Lifestyle & Food Photographer
Northallerton Home Grown Food Festival 2016

This year’s theme is ‘The Great Outdoors’ celebrating local towns, the North Yorkshire countryside, its producers, chefs and restaurants. As well as the popular stalls, live music and children’s activities, this year there will also be a range of outdoor cookery demonstrations, camp fires and barbecues. Well-known, local chefs confirmed as taking part include 2 AA Rosette Jason Moore, from Gisborough Hall, chef-consultant Rob Green and Kevin Hughes from Swinton Park near Masham.

Also new for 2017 is a ‘Tea Tent’ serving various teas and home-made cakes provided by  Northallerton Scout and Guide Group as part of their fundraising efforts.

Over 100 local producers will be taking part in this year’s event with confirmed names including Angels Share Bakery, Bleikers Smokehouse, Brown and Blond, Clucking Pig, Grange Hogroast, Yorkshire Chillies, Kitson Butchers, Weardale Cheese and Chunk Chocolates.

Other activities at the free event will include: –

  • A new-look ‘Tipple Tent’ provided by local publican, Brian Simpson from Little Tanner in Northallerton serving locally-brewed beers, as well as ‘meet-the-brewer’ sessions with ciders, spirits and wines from Mason’s Gin, Pennine Brewery and Zetland Wines
  • Kids’ Kitchen with interactive cookery workshops for children
  • Craft activities– from local artists including Abundant Earth, Wendi May New, Jane Corbett, Anna Whitehead and Ruth Hawkes

This year’s live music features a host of new additions to the line-up and the Homegrown Food Festival has worked with Steve Williams from the famous Willowman Festival and Darren Kirk from Freedom Discos. The line-up includes: –

  • Jazz in the Afternoon
  • Inspiration Choir
  • Jake and Elwood Blues, performing The Blues Brothers
  • Roundel Mod Tribute Band
  • Casual Sax
  • Little Tanner All Stars

Last year’s Homegrown Food Festival attracted over 7,500 visitors from across the North East and North Yorkshire, making it the biggest to date.

The aim of the Homegrown Food Festival is to showcase local producers, international street food and local musicians and offer ideas for growing food at home. The event is organised by a small committee of volunteers who have worked over the last six years to encourage the community to embrace locally-sourced food and drink and support small producers.

The committee relies on funding from a number of sponsors including Simon Bailes Peugeot and the Big Lottery Fund.

UK Lifestyle & Food Photographer
Northallerton Home Grown Food Festival 2016

Organisers of this year’s event have chosen Northallerton Scout and Guide Group as their nominated charity. The group has dozens of members from across the Hambleton area taking part in activities such as climbing, camping, expeditions overseas and learning survival skills.  The funds raised at the Homegrown Food Festival will be used to support further activities and provide funds towards a new headquarters and community building.

One of the organisers, Sally Anderson, said: “We never imagined, six years ago, that the Homegrown Food Festival would be growing year-on-year and attracting thousands of people from across the whole region. Each year we try to build on the previous event so we’ve got a new theme celebrating the wonderful outdoors that we have in North Yorkshire and, as such, we’ll have lots of enticing local producers joining us and some popular chefs.”

Another of the organisers, Nicky Smith, said: “The aim of the Homegrown Food Festival is to showcase local producers, international street food and local musicians as well as offering people some ideas for growing their own food at home and supporting our local community.

“We’re a small committee that relies on the support of local businesses and the local community so we really do need willing volunteers. It’s always a great, fun day and there’s such a lot to do behind the scenes to make it a success.”

http://www.homegrownfoodfest.co.uk/

* The line-up of regional chefs has been brought to the Food Theatre by Irene Myers.

By Emily