Tastes of Anglia gets ready for its annual food festival Feast East 2012

Now in its 18th year, the annual food festival, Feast East held byTastes of Anglia, will take place on 2nd-4th March 2012, in the magnificent surroundings of Chilford Hall in Cambridgeshire. The show consists of three food halls to explore, crammed full of producers from across the region and beyond. The popular cookery demo marquee will also return, where local, up and coming chefs demonstrate a variety of dishes using local ingredients. Feast East kick starts the show season and is always well attended by both trade buyers and public alike. Many local and artisan producers have stands and Tastes of Anglia host Feast East alongside specialist show experts Oakleigh Fairs.

With some 80 stallholders, Feast East is open exclusively to trade visitors Friday morning and allows buyers the freedom to source and meet the producers and talk to Tastes of Anglia about their local delivery service. Public entrance is from 1.30pm Friday and 10am-4pm Saturday and Sunday.

Each year the show attracts thousands of local and regional food fans. They can taste, buy and meet the producers and do it all inside the historic surroundings of Chilford Hall Vineyard and Conference Centre, one of the largest dedicated events venues in Eastern England. The show has a relaxed and friendly feel and boasts popular quirky elements such as the ‘Best Dressed Stand’ competition which is eagerly fought over by the producers, who make such a terrific effort. This year’s event promises to be a real feast for the senses – but especially for the tastes buds!

Local and regional producers will also be joined by other guest producers. Amongst those producers, members of The Artisan Food Trail exhibiting for 2012 are:

The Artisan Smokehouse
Breckland Orchard
Nutty Tarts

Others in attendance include:
St Peters Brewery, Wilkins Preserves, Lucy’s Dressings, Hillfarm Oils, Adnams, Garden of Suffolk, Essfoods (Stokes), Ronaldos Ices, Lakenham Creamery, Crush Foods, Essex Larders, The Chilli Company and Musks Sausages.

If you fancy going there is a chance to win one of five tickets at the bottom of this post!

What is Tastes of Anglia?
Tastes of Anglia is the Eastern region’s food and drink marketing group, set up in the early nineties to be the voice for local food and drink produced in the East of England. It is a membership organisation with over 300 members and is sister group to the other regional food groups across England. It provides members with a wide range of support services including representation at events, workshops, funded training and signposting to many local, national and international opportunities. In 2001 it also launched a local delivery service which now has a turnover of over £1.3 million and serves over 250 customers across East Anglia and into London.

Tastes of Anglia gives support to quality food and drink producers
Tastes of Anglia’s primary aim is to promote the interests of its enthusiastic membership of high quality local food and drink producers, independent retail and catering businesses, affiliate service providers, wholesalers and retailers. Two decades on, it acts as a not-for-profit self-funded venture and represents some of the finest manufacturers and growers of the region's best produce, ingredients and products from large household names to the smallest one-person enterprises.
Beyond its core marketing and business support activities is a dedicated passion in nurturing real local and seasonal food and the whole rural sector across the six counties of its region, namely Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Essex and Bedfordshire.

Growing local and regional network
Operations Director, Tony Bower says “I believe the East of England is the UK’s most vibrant, exciting and diverse region. We are fortunate to work with some of the finest producers and artisan companies in the country, who make a huge variety of amazing products. Our local delivery business started in 2001 and has grown each year as the demand for quality local products from consumers has continued to increase. We were pioneers in giving producers access to many more customers. We are delighted to now supply farm shops, garden centres, delis, independent retailers, CoOps and National Trust properties.”

Delivering choice, quality and provenance
They offer direct weekly deliveries and special point of sale to help highlight their local producer members. They distribute ambient, chilled and frozen products on a fleet of multi temperature liveried vans and represent 75 local producers and have over 2000 lines on their price list. “It’s a team effort” continues Tony, “We are fortunate to work with the finest products made by many fantastic local producers. The retailers and catering outlets have embraced the power of local and provided what their customers wanted; now they can offer more local choice, local quality and real local provenance.”

www.feasteast.co.uk
www.tastesofanglia.com
Tel 01473 785 750

Show stand bookings via Oakleigh Fairs 0800 141 2823
Discounted public entry tickets from www.oakleighfairs.co.uk

Why not enter our competition to win one of five tickets to either Saturday or Sunday of the event? 
Visit The Artisan Food Trail website, answer a simple question, leaving your details and you’ll be entered into the draw.
Sorry this competition has now closed