Delicious and on our doorstep

The Somerset Food Trail is back offering tours, tastings, feasts and more as it invites people to fill their plates with the fine food produced in the county, writes SUSIE WELDON

- SUSIE WELDON

AFTER a year’s break, the Somerset Food Trail festival is back with all kinds of wonderful food adventures planned, from electric bike cheese-and-cider safaris to popup feasts and vineyard tours.

Running from today (Friday) until July 27, the Food Trail is a joyful celebration of the best of the county’s local, sustainably produced food and farming, offering access to parts of the countryside that are normally off-limits and lifting the lid on the farms, people and places behind Somerset's tastiest, most nature-friendly food.

The 10-day festival is organised by local charity Sustainable Food Somerset, of which I am a trustee, and initially grew out of a desire to find ways to better connect consumers with farmers and food producers so that they could understand more what it takes to produce the food on our plates. This year there will be more than 90 venues participating in the food trail, and it has expanded from its original heartland of the Wells/Mendip area, to reach across the county from Yeovil to Taunton, and from Minehead to Wedmore.

One of the great joys of the festival is discovering what fantastic food is being produced right on our doorstep. For this reason, tastings and tours have always played a big role in the food trail but in 2023 we introduced a new challenge - the 30-mile feast, where most of the food and drink provided must come from a 30-mile radius. Much to our surprise, many participating venues took up the challenge, and these proved to be some of our most popular events.

This year the 30-mile feast is back - and we've even got a 30-metre feast, thanks to Frome Field 2 Fork, a charity that runs a market garden close to Frome town centre where people can connect with nature and each other, learn agroecological methods and access nature-focused wellbeing projects.