Gwledd Conwy Feast puts farmers and their animals on the food festival menu
THE Fifth Gwledd Conwy Feast will bring visitors closer to their food than ever before with the festival's very own farmyard.
Cows, sheep, pigs, hens, ducks and turkeys will all feature in a covered enclosure on Conwy's quayside, organised in conjunction with NFU Cymru.
The Gwledd Conwy Feast, which takes place on October 25 and 26, is Wales' third largest food festival and the biggest in North Wales with around 25,000 visitors each year.
The Farming for Food section will be the highlight of this year's Feast which also boasts more than 100 food stalls, demonstration chefs, including Bryn Williams, and a vibrant programme of entertainment.
"The Feast has always been a place where the customer could meet the producer face to face and this is another aspect of that," says organiser Jane Hughes who came up with idea.
Taking part in the event are organic farmer Dafydd Roberts from Bryn Dowsi Farm, Conwy, who will bring Welsh mountain sheep, and Gethin Owen from Bryn-yr-Efail, Betws yn Rhos with a Welsh Black cow and calf and saddleback pigs.
Gethin, whose small family farm is currently in the process of converting to organic status says: "This is a good chance to show the public where their beefburger or their sirloin steak comes from."
Dafydd Roberts agrees: "A lot of people haven't a clue about where their meat actually comes from. This will be an opportunity for them to find out and for us to tell them about how it's raised."
Visitors will also get the chance to meet organic hens, geese, turkeys and ducks owned by Claire Barnard of Ty Newydd Organics, Penmachno.
"I'll be bringing different breeds all of which are organic and free range," says Claire. "Some are kept for eggs but I'll have meat birds too so that people can see the difference between them and factory-farmed birds."
Last year Claire was a Welsh finalist in the Local Food Heroes, impressing celebrity chef Gary Rhodes with her duck eggs and her lamb. She also keeps 25 pedigree Welsh badger-faced sheep.
The Feast also welcomes back North Wales chef Bryn Williams, chef patron at Odette's in London's Primrose Hill.
Bryn, who is now the Feast's patron will demonstrate his skills in two sessions on Saturday and Sunday.
Gordon Ramsay Scholarship winner Aled Glyn Williams, now head chef at Michelin-starred Plas Bodegroes, Pwlheli and Feast regular, Welsh author and chef Colin Pressdee will also be in the demonstration kitchens.
A new addition to the menu this year is cider. Visitors can bring their own apples and have them turned into Gwledd Conwy Feast vintage 2007 cider by Rosie's Triple 'D' Cider Press from Llandegla. They will be able to collect the homegrown tipple at next year's Feast when it has fermented.
To make the event more parent friendly there will be a bag and baby creche so mums and dads can shop at will. The creche and baby changing facility will be run by Clebran Day Nursery and Welsh-language pre-nursery group TWF and will include healthy snacks.