Second Hoylake Food Fair

The second Hoylake Food Fair has surpassed the first, with more than two thousand visitors flocking on Sunday (27 March) to buy the locally-produced meat, vegetables, bread and other goods.

19 producers attended from Hoylake, Meols, West Kirby, Bidston, Birkenhead, Storeton, Bebington, Heswall, Neston, Burton, Wallasey and Port Sunlight, as well as some from Cheshire and North Wales - all within an average distance of only 13 miles.

Along with twenty eight stalls featuring a wide range of produce, the visitors packed a cooking demonstration by local celebrity chef, the Michelin-star-winning Aiden Byrne, who showed kids and their parents how to make home-made marshmallows.

This time, the fair had expanded to use the upstairs rooms at Hoylake Community Centre, allowing a wide range of new producers, including Birkenhead micro-brewery Peerless and Meols preserves specialist Angela’s Farmhouse Kitchen.

Returning producers said that the second Fair was as successful as the first: “Just like the last time it’s been fantastic,” said Grace Aderonke Adegoke of RNK Foods, who was selling Afro-Caribbean dishes. Mary Walton of Mary’s Home-made Cakes had queues of customers for her scones, which she was cooking to order. “It’s been fantastic,” she said, “we sold absolutely everything.”

The Fair organisers, from Transition Town West Kirby and Hoylake Community Centre, will meet over the next few weeks to decide when to hold the next event. “Local people told us they wanted a farmers’ market-style event, and they’ve really demonstrated their support for it twice now,” said Margaret Campbell, who leads the organising team. “Hoylake Community Centre is ideal as a venue, with lots of space inside for visitors to wander round the stalls, sample the foods and talk to the producers. You could see today that people were really relaxed and enjoying the experience.”