Glasgow is to mount the UK's first restaurant festival and producers' market with a social conscience, thanks to a group of the city's most progressive independent chefs.

 

Fed up with Glasgow's enduring reputation for having a mediocre eating-out scene coupled with the worst diet in Europe, chef-restaurateurs from Crabshakk, Ox and Finch, The Gannet, Cail Bruich, Mother India and Ubiquitous Chip among others have formed Real Food Real Folk, a new not-for-profit co-operative whose twin aims are to showcase Glasgow's burgeoning food revival while helping the most deprived in poorer areas of the city.

Its first event is the Let's Eat Glasgow food festival, which aims to feed 5,000 and takes place in September at SWG3, the 19th century red brick former Customs & Excise tobacco warehouse near the Clyde Waterfront at Yorkhill.

With the main theme of social inclusion, it will feature livestock such as pigs, chickens and cattle, butchery demonstrations, and a new West of Scotland producers' market. There will also be subsidised stall rentals; ten stalls are being given free to community groups already addressing the city's food and nutrition issues, such as Glasgow Locavore, Maryhill Food Bank, Coach House Trust and Plan Bee.

Throughout the day, the chefs - Ivan Stein and Peter McKenna of The Gannet, Jonathan McDonald and Andy MacSween of Ox and Finch, David Scott of Crabshakk, Chris Charalambous of Cail Bruich, Monir Mohammed of Mother India, Colin Clydesdale and Carol Wright of Ubiquitous Chip and Stravaigin, Guy Cowan of Guy's, and Stefan Spicknell of Cottonrake Bakery - will create their own range of freshly made small dishes at around £6 each inside the building, and there will be a collective Real Food Real Folk restaurant in the evenings.

All food will be made with fresh ingredients sourced from the city and the west of Scotland. To keep costs down, the chefs are giving their time for free, so the produce and the food will be as cheap as possible.

Echoing London's trendy Borough Market in appearance as well as the ethos of Copenhagen's annual MAD (food) symposium, which is dedicated to the sharing of food knowledge across the social spectrum, Real Food Real Folk is committed to diverting any profits from Let's Eat Glasgow to future education projects in the less affluent areas of the city like Milton and Shettleston where food poverty and social inclusion are ongoing problems. The chefs have undertaken to deliver food and cooking workshops, and other educational projects, in these areas.

Funding of £20,000 from Scottish Enterprise is already in place for Let's Eat Glasgow, and the RFRF co-operative directors are currently seeking additional funding from a variety of food and drink resource streams as well as private sponsorship.

Future events could include a Big Table meal feeding 1000 at Barrowland in the city's East End, and catering the Turner Prize awards ceremony at Tramway in October.

"Glasgow has a huge diversity of restaurants and a vibrant food culture that can compete with New York, Tokyo, Barcelona and London, but somehow that message isn't getting through," said Colin Clydesdale of the Ubiquitous Chip, who with partner Carol Wright instigated Real Food Real Folk.

"We also felt it was imperative that we use our food festival as a means to an end, to face up to Glasgow's very real health problems. This is especially important since John Boyd Orr, the Scot who first made the connection between poor nutrition and mortality, and argued for the fair distribution of good food, is commemorated in Glasgow.

"That's why Real Food Real Folk is not about cheffy prima donnas, it's about social inclusion. There's a huge contradiction between the haves and the have-nots in this city. We are convinced this could be a really influential movement for Scotland and the world."