Major volunteer-run food festival gets under way

One of the UK's largest free-to-enter food festivals gets under way on Friday.

Nantwich Food Festival, in Cheshire, is staged across three days in the town centre, attracting an estimated 40,000 visitors, and is run entirely by volunteers.

"There is just such an amazing atmosphere in town, so many people having a good time," said Nanna Pedley, one of the festival's directors, who like the other 100 volunteers, "love Nantwich and love food and drink".

Celebrity cooks attending this year's event include Lisa Faulkner, Jon Watts and Nigel Brown, with a number of local chefs also staging cooking demonstrations.

The festival is largely staged in marquees, with two car parks given over to the event, and a park and ride service put on to ease traffic in the town centre.

This year's event features more than 200 food exhibitors, as well as live music and entertainment, alongside cooking demonstrations by famous faces and local chefs.

The festival is supported by a range of local businesses and organisations, but Pedley said each year is becoming more challenging to stage.

"As a free-to-enter festival, because we don't charge an entry price, we rely on our exhibitors, on Nantwich Town Council and our sponsors for income, but it is getting harder and we have to work harder each year."

The event is described as one of the highlights of the town's calendar, and people come from "near and far," said Pedley.

"Every year we meet people from Australia, Canada, the US, we really do have quite a wide range of visitors."

Like many of the others who help stage it, Pedley has a full-time job, so the festival is all consuming.

"At this time of year I put my out of office on, and I am full-on in festival mode for 12, 14 hours a day. I'm always really sad when it finishes."

Nantwich Food Festival begins at 11:00 BST on Friday, and runs until 17:00 on Sunday.

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