Calling all foodies! On Saturday 17 July from 10am to 5pm the Organic Research Centre at Elm Farm, Hamstead Marshall (near Newbury), will throw open its gates to all lovers of great food. Elm Farm will be stuffed to bursting with local food stalls, offering all kinds of organic and quality treats.
If you bring the kids along they can have fun making their own pasta, designing “veggie faces” or perhaps taking part in the bug hunt. While they are happily occupied you can take your pick of delicious tastes and textures as you tour the stalls. The familiar names in organic food will take their places alongside some less well-known names to offer organic cheeses, fresh vegetables, taste-bud-zapping fruit cordials and chocolate drinks made from pure dark chocolate powders. Throughout the day there will be organic burgers and salads available from Helen Browning’s famous “Flying Pig” outside catering and organic wines and beers from Vintage Roots. Admission is free and everyone is invited to come along and join in the fun.
Prof. Nic Lampkin, the Organic Research Centre’s Executive Director, said, “We really hope that everyone will pop in to enjoy the food festival with us. The organic and local food available in this area is second to none and we want everyone to have a chance to try it. I have my eye on some of the locally-made cakes, so you had better get here early!”
The Organic Research Centre’s Local Food Festival has been planned to allow everyone who lives in West Berkshire and surrounding counties to join the ORC in celebrating its 30th anniversary. For three decades the Organic Research Centre has been carrying out ground-breaking research into organic techniques which have supported the development of organic farming in the UK. On 24 May, HRH The Prince of Wales visited the Centre at Elm Farm to thank the Organic Research Centre for their help in transforming his own farm at Highgrove into a thriving organic concern. He also wished them well for the coming decades and for the breakthrough research which they would continue to undertake. (More follows)
More information, including the programme for the day and directions can be found at www.organicresearchcentre.com.
ENDS
NOTES FOR EDITORS
Further information is available from:
Nic Lampkin, Executive Director, Organic Research Centre +44 (0)1488 657646
Throughout the day:
11am, 12:30, 2pm: Pasta making (Splat Cooking)
Make pasta using fresh ingredients and take it home to cook for your tea – you may get a little messy but that’s half the fun!
www.splatcooking.net
12 noon, 1pm, 2:30pm: Veggie Faces (Growing 2gether)
Groups of up to 15. Sign up early to avoid disappointment. Let your “veggie face” win you a prize! Using our salad vegetables construct on a paper plate a picture of a face. Your “veggie face” will be photographed and you can nibble on the vegetables you used as you go round the rest of the show, so be sure to use only the vegetables that you like to eat. The photos will be judged and a prize of a collection of fruit and vegetables awarded to the following age groups Up to 5, 6 to 9, 10 to 12.
www.cfpnewbury.org
1:30pm, 3pm Egg painting(tbc) (Beechwood Eggs)
4pm Smoked & Salted (Chris Stopes & Jasper Ayckroyd)
Where there is smoke, there is flavour! See how meat can be preserved with salt and with smoke to resist through time.
www.thebaconwizzard.co.uk
10.00 a.m Bug Hunt
Organic Research Centre staff
Afternoon – farm trail tour
Organic Research Centre Staff
All day Composting display and workshops
WRAP
All day Love Food Hate Waste display
VEOLIA
All day Beekeeper display
John Corne (Newbury Beekeepers Ass.)
Times TBC Green wood turning displays
Chris Allen
Times TBC. Fruit Machine game
Growing 2gether Centre
Seed sowing activity and display
Hungerford Environmental Action Team
Afternoon: Music
Live bands
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