Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
This month’s annual Oswestry Food and Drink Festival has notched up another triumph – and the town has cookshop retailer Yossi Gliksman to thank for coming up with the idea in the first place.
The event, which has now run for three years, “has been a massive success again”, Gliksman, director of Upstairs Downstairs, told HousewaresLive.net. “It took place in the town centre, involving the local market, retailers and 50 local food producers, for two days.
“Oswestry was flooded with around 15,000 visitors that enjoyed tasting and shopping.”
He said the concept of organising a food and drink festival was prompted by the French market that used to set up stall in Oswestry: “I thought to myself, we can produce exactly the same here in the UK.
“As the chairman of the festival committee I insisted on keeping the festival as local as possible, within 30 miles radius from Oswestry, simply to show the public how much we have right on our doorstep, keeping in mind the carbon footprint issues and giving the local economy a much-needed boost.
“It’s been an amazing project for us and we’ve turned away 35 stalls this year. We need to expand even further now.”
Upstairs Downstairs has traditionally had a presence at the festival with a stand.
“But,” said Gliksman, “this year we’ve benefited tremendously because rather than selling on the day from the stand we were giving out leaflets of [Horwood demonstrator] Malcolm Harradine’s recipes and giving 10% off all Stellar and Judge products, and we’ve already had quite a few people come back to the shop and purchase.”
He added: “The festival is a massive exposure to all the retailers in town.”
