Sweeping across the picturesque Somerset countryside, the Somerset Food Trail Festival is set to captivate visitors from July 18 to July 27, offering an exclusive look into the region’s progressive and eco-friendly food producers.
Marking its fourth year, the festival is a showcase of farm-to-table initiatives, nature-conscious farming, and community-based food endeavors. Enthusiasts can partake in activities such as foraging walks, electric bike cheese safaris, pop-up feasts, live performances, and art displays, all shining a spotlight on local producers and their sustainable efforts.
Spearheaded by the charity Sustainable Food Somerset, the festival aims to connect consumers with the often unseen aspects of food production, granting rare access to farms and producers that are typically off-limits to the public. Last year’s event attracted over 7,500 visitors to its website and involved more than 170 venues hosting 385 events countywide.
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One of the festival’s highlights, the 30-Mile Feast Challenge, calls on participating venues to source 90% of their ingredients from within a 30-mile radius. With approximately 40 venues joining the initiative last year, the focus was on championing local produce such as vegetables, grass-fed meat, and products from independent producers.
Susie Weldon, co-founder and trustee of Sustainable Food Somerset, emphasized the growing interest in food provenance and the increasing desire to support local culture. Late entrants were encouraged to register, as Weldon stressed, “It is not too late to sign up. Farming or food venues should register on www.somersetfoodtrail.org by Saturday, June 1 to guarantee their place.”
Kate Hughes, chair of Sustainable Food Somerset, and a regenerative farmer based in Exmoor, highlighted the festival’s significance as a platform for local food and drink businesses to promote their sustainable practices. According to Hughes, the event serves as an opportunity to reconnect communities around food and address larger issues such as human health, affordability, climate change, and biodiversity loss.
This year’s festival will feature events across Exmoor, including community feasts and free activities hosted by notable producers like Wood Advent Farm, With the Wild, and the acclaimed Longstraw Bakery.
The festival aligns with the movement towards agroecological and regenerative farming, aiming to decentralize food systems and bolster local economies. Hughes reiterated the importance of shifting towards regenerative farming, stating, “There’s increasing evidence that regeneratively farmed food is not just better for the soil and the climate, it’s markedly better for health – and if it hasn’t traveled hundreds of miles, it tastes a whole lot better too!”