Organisers of Real Food Real Folk, the UK's first not-for-profit co-operative of Glasgow's most progressive chefs, have declared themselves "staggered" by the response to the announcement of its first food festival in September.
Funding has already been secured from a variety of sources, including the Scottish Government's Community Food Fund, Scottish Enterprise with more funding announcements pending.
Demand for producer stalls at Let's Eat Glasgow, RFRF's inaugural restaurant festival and food market at SWG3, the former Customs & Excise bonded warehouse near the Clyde Waterfront at Yorkhill, is so high that permission is being sought for the road at Eastvale Place to be closed in order to extend it.
So far, 38 artisan producers, predominantly from the West of Scotland, have secured their stalls. They include Caldwell's Kitchen Garden, Girvan; Clash Farm, Stranraer, Ritchies Smokehouse, Rothesay; Ballimore Oysters, Argyll; Dunlop Dairy, Ayrshire; the Little Sourdough Bakery, Glasgow; Petrie Fine Foods, Fenwick; the Hebridean Food Company, North Uist; Millers Larder, Lanarkshire, and Lime Tree larder, Kilbirnie.
In addition, several social enterprises are to have stalls free of charge, in keeping with Real Food Real Folk's commitment to directing any profits towards educational food projects in the city's deprived areas to help tackle the city's nutrition problems. They include Urban Roots, Govan; Locavore, Glasgow; Plan Bee, Motherwell; Tin Cat, Govanhill; and Urban Edge community garden at Daldowie in the city's East End.
Let's Eat Glasgow anticipates visitor numbers of up to 10,000 over the weekend of September 5-6, 2015. Entry is free, and vouchers for a range of innovative all-day dishes freshly made on-site by top chefs from Cail Bruich, Cottonrake Bakery, Crab Shakk, The Gannet, Guy's, Mother India, Ox and Finch, Stravaigin and Ubiquitous Chip go on sale today at £5 each. They can be purchased in advance online through the Let's Eat Glasgow website (letseatglasgow.co.uk).
They include lamb meatballs, hazelnut dukkah, fatoush salad and baba ganoush from Ox and Finch; cured venison, crispy ox tongue, smoked whisky and lovage from Cail Bruich; spicy pincer end crabclaw meat and sticky riceball from Crab Shakk; a Trio of mini Scottish pies by Guy Cowan at Guy's; and Roast Renfrewshire wood piegeion, Argyll forest mushroom barley risotto and soused chanterelles by Ubiquitous Chip.
Colin Clydesdale, founder of Real Food Real Folk,said: "We are absolutely staggered by the response to our new restaurant festival, and it seems the message is getting through that Glasgow has a vibrant food culture despite appearances to the contrary. We want to use our food festival as a means to an end, and face up to the city's very real health problems. We are convinced this could be a really influential movement for Scotland.
"As we anticipate big attendance on the day, we would recommend people buy their £5 vouchers for our fantastic small plates in advance."
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