AN event which sees thousands of food lovers enjoy the best of Somerset produce is returning for 2023.

The 2022 Somerset Food Trail saw 8,500 members of the public visit more than 190 sustainable food producers and retailers.
Now, the dates have been announced for the 2023 edition of the trail, with a new overarching theme of The 30-mile Feast.
Foodies will be able to taste the best the county has to offer at a series of feasts showcasing ingredients supplied by the county’s growing band of regenerative farmers and sustainable food producers.

Somerset Food Trail is managed and run by Sustainable Food Somerset – SFS, formerly Wells Food Network – an advocacy group working towards a more nature-friendly food system.
And it is putting out a county-wide call to encourage feasts and tastings that can showcase food gleaned and grown within a 30-mile radius.
“We are particularly keen to include events that showcase cost-effective sources of good food, such as foraging and community growing,” said SFS board member Graham Harvey, an environmental campaigner who for more than 30 years was a scriptwriter and agricultural story editor on the BBC’s longest-running radio drama, The Archers.
Graham said it is important to recognise the trail events are ‘feasts for nature’, with an emphasis on helping people learn more about where their food comes from.
“Ultimately, we are trying to create a movement that gets consumers to wield the power they have to impact food production, supporting the shift to nature-friendly farming that is vital for our planet,” he said.
SFS chair Stewart Crocker said: “It’s time to recognise the value of restoring and creating habitat for nature within a productive landscape.
“It is telling that one of the key topics under discussion at Davos this January was food systems and how they can be revolutionised through regenerative agriculture.
“Our chemical-dependent food system is simply unsustainable in every sense.”

The 2022 Somerset Food Trail laid the way for feasts, with ticketed lunches and dinners at venues from Wiveliscombe – William Sitwell’s Wivey Wonders Lunch – to Fanny Hatstand’s Riverside Market and Supper in Langport, On the Spoon’s Shatwell Farm dinner and a Friday Feast at Pigpen, in Over Stratton.

In 2023, a ‘feast’ could range from a three-course sit-down dinner to a picnic in a field – as long as most of the food is sourced from a 30-mile radius.
To find out more about setting up a feast in your area, visit www.somersetfoodtrail.org, before March 15.