photo credit: thegardenbuzz
A first for Kilkenny and quite possibly the country, FoodCamp (book your tickets) takes place this Friday at the Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel as part of the Savour Kilkenny Food Festival. It’s an all day affair, kicking off at 10am and running through to 4:30pm. The venue works a treat for these kind of events, I’ve used it myself in the running of PodCamp locally a few years ago. But more importantly, it’s a chance to bring foodies and food producers together under the one roof for over 20 different talks and an afternoon panel discussion.
Some of the topics up for discussion on Friday include
- Health Tips for Foodies
- The Place of Food Safety in Professional Small Food Businesses
- Getting a Product to Market
- Social Media, the Web and building your Food Business
- Trends in packaging/ingredients/processing technologies in the seafood industry.
The panel discussion, taking place after lunch is entitled Digging Ireland out of the recession – Artisan produce, Food Innovation and Guerrilla Marketing and features John McKenna (chair), Dr Susan Steel (BIM), Helen Finnegan (Knockdrinna Cheese), Una Fitzgibbon (Bord Bia), Margaret Jeffares (Good Food Ireland), Paul McCarthy (Teagasc) and Rozanne Stevens (Chef).
I’ve the ticket booked but the lunch box yet to be packed. There is a lunch option available at the hotel which if you pick up a €15 ticket or go the recession-busting FREE day route IF you bring along a lunch enough for yourself with some more to share. I’ve a cracking red rice recipe I’m mad to try out so may well load up on that for lunch on Friday afternoon.
For the past three years I’ve been involved heavily with the Rockfall Festival which runs the same weekend (October Bank Holiday annually), a role which I’ve stepped out of this year so I’m looking forward to getting tucked into some of the foodie treats on offer for the weekend.
Get the run down of the day here, the full list of speakers here and book your tickets here before its too late!