A COUPLE of us visited Abergavenny last September to find out more about their excellent food festival. Have you been? It is pretty impressive.

It has grown into one of the biggest in the country and strikes me there are many similarities with Malton’s Food Lovers Festival. We have got huge crowds, loads of superb events and some famous names to boot.

Prue Leith, Valentine Warner, Diana Henry, James Mackenzie and Andrew Pern last time I checked. We’ve also got a superb volunteer team and great stalls, but there was, I am afraid, one big exception.

Where Abergavenny was streets ahead was in the participation of the traders.

Traders in Abergavenny were doing their utmost to get themselves noticed, to promote their business, to get visitors through the door and in many cases decamping their shop onto the street to take their products straight to the people.

Above all, the traders were making the most of the weekend. It was notable, too, that most were the non-food ones. Malton could do so much more in this respect.

With Malton’s Gastro Glasto coming on May 23 and 24, it is time to think about what can be gained from 20,000 people or so coming for the weekend.

For some it is straight sales, but it is also one massive promotional opportunity.

Clearly the first people to benefit are cafés, restaurants and the like. In Abergavenny, every food businesses had crammed chairs and tables out on the street attracting the passers-by.

Hats off to Derek Fox the butcher who for the last few years has taken his shop out on to the street. I am sure this will have benefited him.

In Abergavenny, there was the chemist who themed his products with an entirely citrus fruit stall theme right in front of his shop.

There was the dress shop that had made their stall look like a big wedding, with blushing bride, cupcakes and Champagne. They had people traipsing in off the street all day and were very popular.

Shop windows had food themes, whatever the shop. Even a stationer had gone down the cookery theme route and an outdoor clothing shop that had the simple “festival discount, this weekend only”.

That seemed to work a treat. It could be as simple as getting leaflets handed out across the festival.

And it is not just for the professionals either. This year for the first time there is the community kitchen in Finkle Street. For £60, you can apply to take a stall and sell your wares, providing it is food related.

For all those aspiring cooks and bakers this is their chance run a food business for a weekend and wow the crowds with some homemade cupcakes, shucked oysters, some great street food, wooden chopping boards, whatever.

Malton Food Lovers Festival is now one of the largest food festivals in the north and yet traders in town are not making the most of it. If you’re interested in getting involved in this year’s festival, get in touch now. Email stalls@welovemalton.co.uk