Meeting discusses big appetite for local produce
As a major Flintshire food festival is about to get under way, local producers are meeting to discuss ways to use cuisine to entice more visitors to the county.
Fruit picking... members of local group Veg in My Back Yard
has become a big cultural event over the recent years, bringing in thousands of people from across the region, say organisers.
So a separate conference is being held to discuss ways to satisfy people's appetite for local produce throughout the year, rather than just at local festivals and markets.
"When tourists arrive they want to eat local produce as part of their holiday experience," says John Les Tomos, chairman of Flintshire Tourism Association.
"This is what gives hospitality businesses in north Wales a competitive advantage."
An has already been set up on social network site, Facebook, hoping to feed in to Flintshire's tourism industry which is worth £170m annually.
And organiser Jane Clough, who runs the group and , Loggerheads, near Mold, has also hit on the idea to produce hampers for B&Bs which contain locally sourced produce.
"They can give us a shopping list and we can put it all together for them and, hey presto, you have all the ingredients for a local lunch, tea, dinner or a borderlands breakfast," Jane tells the .
Meanwhile, two other meetings take place next week with local veg growers to discuss an idea to set up a community-run food project where members grow their own and sell their produce.
It is officially called (CSA) and a speaker from will be going along.
The sessions take place at Mold Rugby Club (Tuesday) and Carmel School, near Holywell (Wednesday), at 6.30pm and are led by Flintshire CSA coordinator Nikki Giles in her work with a rural development agency.
Nikki also runs the group VIMBY, .
