The award-winning Ballantrae Festival of Food and Drink will take place online again this year.
After last year’s success, the festival is widening its virtual reach by linking up with Norway, Finland and Germany.
And it aims to offer foodies a programme packed with online markets, video presentations, discussions on sustainable food tourism and interactive sessions hosted in conjunction with UNESCO Biospheres, The Scottish Food Guide and Slow Food.
Attendees will include; a wild sheep farmer from Norhordland, a wild food forager from North Karelia, and an apple-sherry producer from Rhon – whose apple-sherry, is matured in Scotch whiskey barrels.
The festival – which takes place this weekend on Saturday, June 12 and Sunday, June 13 – is supported by Ballantrae Community Development Trust and last year’s ground-breaking Covid-friendly format saw more than 7,000 visitors engage online, compared to around 3,000 to 4,000 at previous events.
Organisers hope to build on that breadth of engagement this year with the benefit of additional funding partners and with the support of the Scotland Food and Drink Regional Food Group, whose coordinators have been working with the Ballantrae team since October 2020.
Dr Mhairi Mckenna, of the Ballantrae organising group (BFFD), said the team were ‘delighted that the UNESCO Biospheres are supporting this important initiative’.
Howard Wilkinson, chairperson of the Ayrshire Food Network, added: “The additional resources which SFAD funding has provided us over the last nine months have enabled us to engage more widely with food tourism businesses throughout the southwest of Scotland.”
Marie McNulty, business development officer at the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere, brought the organisation’s international Biosphere contacts on board.
Marie said: “There are many learning opportunities arising from transnational exchanges and we want to bring our global network right into the heart of the Ayrshire and Ballantrae communities.
“And the Ballantrae Festival of Food and Drink is the perfect time to do so, especially in light of the 50th Anniversary of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme, which is all about improving the relationship between people and environment and making our food systems sustainable.”
For further information on the organisations involved, visit www.ballantraefoodfest.com; www.ayrshirefoodnetwork.co.uk; www.gsabiosphere.org.uk
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