20.10.2021

This year's Good Food Cardiff Autumn Festival seeks to inspire individuals and businesses to take action to help improve access to good food across the city.

The festival is focused on championing sustainable, healthy food and encouraging Cardiff's communities to come together to shape their local food system.

Following the success of the 2020 Festival, Food Cardiff's Good Food Cardiff Autumn Festival has returned with a focus on building healthy communities. With both in-person and virtual events taking place during the week of 16^th- 24^thOctober, the festival will host a series of dedicated sessions that are centred on nutritious food, sustainability and connecting with likeminded individuals.

Bringing together community groups, local businesses, gardens, schools and organisations, the Good Food Cardiff Autumn Festival will be centred on building stronger, healthier communities that prioritise good food.

Local artist, Nathan Wyburn has created a large-scale image using locally grown fruit and veg, which will be cooked up by groups throughout the festival. As well as this, the Festival will welcome good food content and activities from partners across the city, including food quizzes, a Virtual Grow Along, Pumpkin Carving sessions and much more.

The festival will also mark the launch of Cardiff's city-wide food strategy at its Good Food Summit on Friday, October 22. The food strategy has been developed with the support of over 2,500 people in the city, identifying five Good Food Goals to prioritise over the coming years, and helping to improve the way individuals and businesses grow, buy, cook and eat across Cardiff.

The Good Food Summit will bring together leaders, businesses, organisations, community groups and activists to kick-start action to create a better food future.

Speakers will include Cllr Huw Thomas, Leader of Cardiff Council, Carolyn Steel, Author, Jane Davidson, former Welsh Government Minister, Nirushan Sudarsan, young leader working with Citizens Cymru Wales and Fiona Kinghorn, Executive Director of Public Health at Cardiff and Vale Health Board

Cllr Huw Thomas, Leader of Cardiff Council said: "If you look at the work that's been done across the Food Cardiff partnership to change our food systems and deliver healthy sustainable and ethical food for the people of Cardiff, it really is remarkable how much has been achieved since 2018, when we launched our commitment to achieving Silver and ultimately Gold status for the city.

"The festival is an opportunity to celebrate all of the fantastic work that community groups and businesses have done to keep the city fed and to bring us together over the challenging past year. The Summit will explore to how Cardiff can build on this momentum and transform the local food system."

Fiona Kinghorn, Executive Director of Public Health, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board said, "As a Health Board we are focused, with our partners, on improving the health and wellbeing of our staff and local population, with a particular focus on creating a healthier food environment.

"We are always delighted to support the work of our partner Food Cardiff, who play an important role in helping our population access good food and championing a sustainable food system in Cardiff.

"The Good Food Autumn Festival is a fantastic event that encourages our communities to come together and connect over the importance of improving access to the amount of healthy, environmentally sustainable choices on offer."

Festival organiser and Sustainable Food Places Coordinator at Food Cardiff, Pearl Costello, explained: "Our Good Food Autumn Festival is one of our major events and we are very excited to launch our Good Food Strategy which will be used to transform the food we grow, buy and eat across Cardiff.

"By getting more people involved in the festival, Cardiff is creating a good food movement which will boost the amount of healthy, environmentally sustainable food on offer, which supports a thriving local food economy, empowers people and is fair and connected."

To find out more about Food Cardiff's Good Food Autumn Festival, the events taking place and how you can get involved, please visit https://foodcardiff.com/blog/good-food-cardiff-autumn-festival-programme/.
 
📸 Matthew Horwood