Great British Food Festival celebrates 15 years with incredible new events

The Great British Food Festival has built up a reputation for delivering high quality food and drink events since it started from the Maycock family’s kitchen table 15 years ago. Now, the event organisers are ready to celebrate with 12 festivals across the UK in incredible locations including four new events.

Embracing family friendly get-togethers with tantalising food and drink has proved a winning formula for the Great British Food Festivals. With engaging chef demonstrations, lively panel discussions, competitions, foraging walks and the infamous chilli challenge, where visitors get to test their capacity for hot chilli peppers, the events are a celebration of the culinary world. The show stopping locations add to the sense of occasion and the entertainment and friendly, relaxed atmosphere are key to their success.

Danny and Janine Maycock are two of the family members at the helm and are passionate about providing opportunities for people to try the most incredible international street food and British produce. They are also great advocates for those taking their first steps into the hospitality sector and always happy to support new talent.

Alana Spencer was one of the first traders at Great British Food Festival. Alana won the twelfth series of BBC’s The Apprentice in 2016 securing a £250,000 investment in her luxury cake and chocolate business. Ridiculously Rich creates cakes from the finest ingredients and Alana, who is based in Wales, now manages franchises across the UK.

Alana said: “Janine and Danny were supportive of me when I was getting started. The Great British Food Festival is just such a brilliant event for producers to showcase what they do and to meet the public. Trading at the event I got to hear first-hand what people liked about my cakes and what they wanted. The experience was friendly and invaluable in helping me to build my business.”

Brothers Nick and Danny Maycock set up a restaurant review website called Onion Ring in 2004 and through this they made plenty of contacts in the hospitality sector. Danny’s partner Janine worked as a lawyer and was pregnant with her first child when the couple and Nick decided to go for it and put on their first food festival fifteen years ago.

Janine says: “We often visited food festivals and thought some of them were a bit corporate and that we could do it better. Rather than letting it go, we took the lead and delivered the first Cheshire Food Festival in Warrington. I was on maternity leave at the time with my eldest and ran the cake stall. I remember deliberating for ages about whether we should charge £1.50 or £2 for the entrance fee.

“It was incredibly popular, with thousands of visitors.”

The Maycocks have gone from strength to strength and quickly decided that one festival wasn’t enough, and the Great British Food Festival began taking over the summer calendars of country estates across the UK. This year there are two new events in London.

Janine adds: “We started working from Danny and Nick’s mum’s garage in Cheshire.
The locations we choose are iconic. They offer an incredible backdrop to the event. They also have the infrastructure we need in terms of car parking and facilities. Most of all though it means that visitors get to enjoy a very special day out with all the country estate has to offer.”

The events are still a family affair and Nick Maycock met his fiancée, recipe developer, author and chef, Marni Xuto through the festivals. The couple live in Cheshire and Marni has become a regular face on stage. The couple are planning to get married in 2017.

Nick says: “Working with my family on the Great British Food Festivals has been an incredible journey. Despite the challenges, like the pandemic, so many wonderful things have happened. Seeing people enjoy themselves with friends at our events makes for a very rewarding job and meeting my future wife Marni through the festivals has been the icing on the cake.”

Details:
Tickets are available here https://greatbritishfoodfestival.com/tickets.php
Social media Instagram @greatbritishfoodfestival

Great British Food Festival
Trentham Gardens, Staffordshire May 3rd- 5th
Arley Hall, Northwich, Cheshire May 10th – May 11th
Harewood House, Leeds May 24th-26th
Holdenby House, Northamptonshire June 14th-15thth (NEW)
Dinton Pastures, Berkshire June 21st-22nd
Danson Park, London July 5th-6th (NEW)
Knebworth House, Herts July 19th-20th
Weston Park, Shropshire, July 26th-27th (NEW)
Lydiard Park, Wiltshire August 2nd 3rd
Wentworth Woodhouse August 16th-17th
Wimbledon Park August 23rd-25th (NEW)
Margam Park, Wales, September 6th-7th