It seems appropriate that it is Glasgow, rather than Edinburgh, that has taken it upon itself to mount the UK's first grassroots food festival and producers' market with a genuine social conscience.

 

For one, Glasgow is becoming renowned for having the most exciting group of progressive independent chefs in the country. They are producing food that is modern, delicious and created with locally-sourced and foraged fresh produce, and it's as good as you'll get in London, Edinburgh, Barcelona or New York. This is true not only in the new Finnieston 'quartier' where two new restaurants recently attracted Bib Gourmands from the Michelin Guide (though whether such gongs matter at all is questionable), but also in the West End proper and, increasingly, in the city centre. In Glasgow, it has become positively hip to eschew the chasing of Michelin stars - such is the strength of its new-found culinary confidence. Edinburgh, with its five Michelin gongs to date, is no longer gazed upon from the west with envy. The city of the Turner Prize cherishes the freedom to innovate and create.

But more than that, Glasgow is the city that cares. Witness the very public outpourings of sympathy in reaction to the recent Clutha Vaults, bin lorry and Karen Buckley tragedies. The people of Glasgow like to think of themselves as socialist, always in solidarity with the underdog; in the city that has the highest levels of food banks in the country, anti-poverty protests are becoming regular features in George Square.

These dual forces have been fomenting a collective frustration among those who have been at the coal face of the local food revolution. While the rest of the world continued to dismiss Glasgow's eating-out scene as mediocre, and focused relentlessly on its reputation for having the worst diet-related health problems in Europe, it felt like nobody was giving Glasgow the shout-out it deserved.

When Colin Clydesdale and Carol Wright of Ubiquitous Chip and Stravaigin first had the idea of forming a not-for-profit cooperative of independent chef-patrons and creating - rather than hosting - a Glasgow food festival with the twin objectives of bigging up the city's largely unsung culinary talent while helping the most socially excluded, they contacted a group of like-minded chefs to sound them out. I'm told there was no hesitation. Every single one of them signed up immediately and Real Food Real Folk was born.

Let's hear it for 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, Guy Cowan of Guy's, and Stefan Spicknell of Cottonrake Bakery. RFRF is a rather cool mix of new and established culinary talent, attracted to each other because of a shared attitude and vision. I understand they've been enjoying working together on this project, relishing the prospect of getting out of their respective restaurant kitchens to cook in a different location in a different style for a completely different customer group.

Let's Eat Glasgow will be RFRF's first event. It takes place over the weekend of September 5 and 6 at SWG3, the funky 19th century red brick former Customs & Excise tobacco warehouse near the Clyde Waterfront at Yorkhill. It's a bold and ambitious idea that has the capacity to feed 5000 over two days.

The arch-lined lane leading up to the building will feature livestock such as pigs, chickens and cattle, and a new producers' market. There will be subsidised stall rentals; ten stalls of the 55 available are being given free to community groups already addressing food and nutrition issues, such as Glasgow Locavore, Maryhill Food Bank and the Coach House Trust. Producers so far include Ritchie's of Rothesay smoked fish, Ardunan Farm of Strathblane and Plan Bee hives of Motherwell. There will also be butchery demonstrations to help highlight the link between food and farming.

Throughout the day, the chefs will create their own range of freshly made small dishes at around £6 each inside the building, and there will be a communal Real Food Real Folk meal in the evenings. All dishes will be made with fresh ingredients sourced from 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.

I reckon SWG3 is a brilliant location for this. With its gritty urban appeal it echoes London's Borough Market and New York's Queen's 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. Filled with fresh produce and the buzz of culinary innovation, it has the potential to grow arms and legs.

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 future food and cooking workshops, and other educational projects, in these and other areas.

Funding of £20,000 from Scottish Enterprise is already in place for Let's Eat Glasgow, and the directors are seeking additional funding and sponsorship.

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

Stefan Spicknell, chef-proprietor of Cottonrake 24-hour bakery in the west end, reckons Glasgow chefs have spent too many years worrying about what Edinburgh is doing; the time is right, he says, for them to get together, take control and tell the world about Glasgow's fantastic food offer - because nobody else is doing it. "There are restaurant associations and organisations in the city, but what do they do?," he says. "There are so many young chefs with restaurants who are just getting on with it; they've got attitude but don't bother with the business of marketing themselves in an attempt to outdo each other."

Guy Cowan, who comes from a long line of grocers, goes one step further and says Glasgow's culinary talent has been overlooked by the city council "for many years".

"This project is brilliant, it's fantastic for Glasgow and it's great to get together with like-minded people," he told me. "The restaurant world is traditionally very competitive but that's not true with us. We share. Doing something together is really nice and it's an honour for me to be with such talented chefs.

"I often think Glasgow City Council hasn't helped. It hasn't sold Glasgow as a foodie destination on a par with other European cities."

He plans a dish of Scottish pork in mead supplied by Plan Bee, and flash-fried featherblade of local beef. Monir Mohammed, whose restaurant Mother India, like Guy's, is long-established, declares himself "very excited" by Let's Eat Glasgow. "It's time for us to move forward and harness the new energy in Glasgow and to get more people into food," he says.

Hopefully, the festival will attract people who wouldn't normally eat in restaurants. Peter McKenna and Ivan Stein of The Gannet enthuse about the change of format from formal to casual, the challenge of cooking for a different audience, and the possibility of it "encouraging people to think about food a bit more and to learn to enjoy it". They are delighted to be getting out of the kitchen to work with others, and are hopeful that this will lead to other things.

"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 and Stravaigin. "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."

Do I hear the sound of the old Glasgow melting away like Mars Bars in a deep-fat frier?

letseatglasgow.co.uk