Manchester Food & Drink Festival 2004
| When? | Saturday 2nd, Sunday 3rd and Saturday 9th October |
| Where? | St. Ann's Square and Unicorn Grocery |
| Why? | To promote the real food guide website (www.realfoodguide.org.uk) and join in Unicorn's 8th birthday celebrations. |
The first two weeks of October saw the annual celebration of the quality, wealth and diversity of the food and drink industry in Manchester that is the Manchester Food & Drink Festival.
One of the main themes of this year's festival was "Buy Local, Buy Regional", and to help shoppers do just that a Local Producers' Market was held in St. Ann's Square each day throughout the festival, showcasing produce from around the North West.
We joined in the festivities with stalls on the two Saturdays (2nd and 9th October) to encourage market-goers to continue supporting local producers once the festival was over by shopping at the local food outlets listed in the directory on our Real Food Guide website (www.realfoodguide.org.uk).
We also urged people to write letters to their MPs, asking them to sign two Early Day Motions (parliamentary petitions) in support of a strong legal framework to ensure biotechnology companies are liable for damage caused by their GM products, and a strengthened and legally-binding code of practice for supermarkets.
As well as the main festival, there was a fringe festival running in Chorlton which also happened to coincide with the 8th birthday of the legendary Unicorn Grocery. We joined in the birthday celebrations on Sunday 3rd October with Action for Sustainable Living (AFSL) and the Vegan Organic Network.
Lured over to our gazebo by the free samples of Fair Trade juice served up by Anna from AFSL, Unicorn shoppers took the opportunity to find out more about our Real Food Guide website and were particularly keen to urge their MPs to help curb supermarket power and support independent businesses like Unicorn that are trying to compete against them.
Unicorn Grocery sells a wide range of GM-free, organic and locally-produced food and environmentally-friendly household products. It is located at 89 Albany Road in Chorlton - for more information, visit its website at www.unicorn-grocery.co.uk.
Action for Sustainable Living is a charity that provides environmental advice to people in South Manchester - for more information, call 0845 456 4468 or e-mail info@AFSL.greenisp.org.
The Vegan Organic Network promotes the growing of stockfree organic food that is entirely free from animal inputs - for more information, visit their website at www.veganorganic.net.
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Take Action!
Visit the Manchester Real Food Guide website at www.realfoodguide.org.uk to find out more about real food and where to get it in the Manchester area.