Time to try the best of local food

By Mike Byrne.

Sizzling sausages, hearty hog roasts, fresh and fancy fishcakes and wonderful wines.

Now you are thinking of food - and that's Just what the organisers of the Exeter Festival of South West England food and Drink 2005 want you to do.

The festival, which features more than 55 producers in its Taste of the West Food & Drink Pavilion, runs from tomorrow through Saturday and into Sunday at Exeter's Northernhay Gardens.

Producers will display the very best of locally and regionally produced food and drink.

Exhibitors include people like Andrew Freemantle, of Kenniford Farm, Clyst St Mary, just outside Exeter, who started to sell his pigs through his own farm shop and a hog roast company.

Starting with a cook-up at his own wedding, the hog roasting business snowballed, with friends and contacts requesting it at their own parties and celebrations.

Andrew said: “In 2000 we did 20 hog roasts but in 2004 we had in excess of 150 hog roasts. They are perfect for parties and weddings and are an easy way of cooking for a large number of people.

“This festival really starts the summer season for us and is a good boost after the quieter winter months. After the 2004 Festival, we were busy until September with hog roast bookings we took at the festival itself.

His Kenniford Farm now has farm shops in Clyst St Mary and on Woodbury Common, as well as delivering to 20 other cafes, hotels and retail outlets in the region. Clarksons of Devon, in Ottery St Mary has processed Kenniford Farm's pigs since they began selling their own produce.

It makes all the farm's sausages and hams using more than 100 pigs per week.

For the future, Andrew wants to continue processing his pigs efficiently and to widen his distribution by selling to bigger retail groups.

He said: “We would like to work with a retailer like the Co-op, which is keen to source local products. We definitely have the ability to provide it with sausages, bacon and ham reared, raised and produced from a single farm in Devon.”

Not far away, Flying Fish Feasts, of Honiton, has been making fishcakes for 21 years using Westcountry fish bought direct from Brixham, along with potatoes and herbs. The family business sells its fishcakes nationally to butchers, delicatessens, farmers' markets and through mail order.

All the fisjcakes are mode in Honiton and the company produces around 2,000 a day employing 14 people.

Owner David Meadow: said: “We are creating some new fishcakes for the festival and will also be serving our own quiches and special fish pie at the event.

“The response from visitors at last year's festival was very good. We completely sold out of stock every day.

Publication: Express & Echo
Publication Date: March 17, 2005