Why Isn’t There An Official Wag Funded Food Festival Calendar?

Yes this is yet another topic that I have raised with Wag too many times to count and yes in some ways it might be best if I gave up continually repeating myself, but if producers are still asking ME for a calendar, this issue is not going away is it? Now why producers are asking me is a bit silly – If only I was the font of Wag Food & Drink knowledge, but I have no control over Wag or Cywain and to be honest, I often struggle to find and uncover what is happening within the Wag Food and Drink Division. I guess they think I have no reason to know and I am not inundated with the press releases. But for those of you that are not aware, Cywain* is a Quango, an offshoot of Menter A Busnes** and Cywain run food festival funding for Wag. But I do think the point here is that after way more than a decade, there is still no food festival calendar. Guess this should be a clear message from Cywain/Wag as they don’t see a need for one, even if producers do.

Welsh Country has its own event listings, including a category for food festivals which can be found at www.welshcountry.co.uk/food-festivals/

Wag tell me they have no control or input as to the dates food festivals select to run their food festival, which I strongly disagree with as I believe that whoever pays the piper actually calls the tune. My calendar clash isn’t so much for a festival running in north Wales and a food festival in the south, though having said that, I am aware that a few companies will send out stands to both if they can possibly work both. What is more annoying is having two local food festivals that select the same date to run. Of course this isn’t a problem if we are talking about a large company who are able to send out two or even three trade stands, they are not the ones complaining to me. It is the micro trader the 1, 2, or 3 person company who often finds two local festivals are running on the same date and they’d like to do both, but haven’t got the people power or vans to do both. So these smaller traders simply have to pick which festival of the two is likely to be busiest for them and have fingers crossed that they haven’t got it wrong!  That is often a tough call, made worse when the following weekend doesn’t have a food festival at all.

Wag/Cywain can perhaps say the micro companies will have to grin and bear it, but why should they have to? Making a living as a micro business has always been a tough task but add in Covid, the cost of living hike, then importantly with energy and fuel costs to cope with, these producers have never needed more help and support as they do now. Of course Civil Servants, who have the luxury of a regular monthly pay packet will struggle to understand the lifestyle and financial pressures befalling food producers, when they have never experienced it. I’d just appreciate Wag/Cywain making a ‘better’ and I’m being polite here, contact with micro producers so they can gain first-hand knowledge of the problems producers have and the pressure they are working under every day.

So let me ask my question again, why can’t Welsh food and drink producers have an official Wag food festival calendar? I am still suggesting once again that Cwyain run a food festival calendar and if clashing occurs the longest running festival keeps their date and the other festival changes.

However I have my fingers crossed as I am taking for granted that there will be Wag funding for food festivals this year!!! But when will we know about Wag food festival funding?

To help new readers, the following is taken from Cywain and Menter’s website:

*Cywain say: If you farm, fish, a processer, sell Welsh Food & Drink and want to develop your business, Cywain can help. 

** Menter a Busnes is an independent, not for profit company that supports individuals, businesses and organisations in Wales to start and develop their business. We have dedicated staff and our focus is on providing services of the highest standard.  The workforce has 130 members of staff who are located across 5 offices across Wales as well as some working from home.