About Us

1. Introduction

Galtres Parklands Festival has always a number of caterers and has often also included a food tent. There has also been a wide selection of local beers and ciders. This policy is intended to determine which food suppliers and caterers we wish to invite to our event, and how we would like them to operate.

2. General objectives

The organisers of Galtres Parklands Festival wish caterers and other food and drink suppliers and stall-holders to uphold its mission statement, which include supporting local food and drink producers.

We’d like to protect the environment and reduce the event’s carbon footprint buy sourcing as locally as possible. We also wish our caterers to use biodegradable food packaging where possible.

Recognising that we operate in a rural area and use farmers’ fields, we’d like local farmers to benefit financially from our event, provided they can supply free range meat and dairy products, and naturally-grown or organic vegetables and other produce.

Where produce is imported we’d like to use Fair Trade supplies where possible.

We want festival attendees to enjoy food and drink of a superb quality and at a reasonable price, and hope that they may be inspired to buy good local food and drink after the event.

We want to support small independent breweries and cider producers, and expose the public to the exciting range of non-commercial drinks they produce.

We’re interested in diversity of food and catering, such as ethnic foods, and recognize that in some instances such food and drink may need to be sourced from further afield.

3. Specific objectives

3.1 We'd like our caterers to source their main ingredients from local suppliers - including meat, vegetables, bread, and dairy. We'd like them to tell us who they're using as their main suppliers. We should offer to put them in touch with local suppliers if they don't know them.

3.2 We also support FairTrade produce and want our caterers to use Fair Trade products where possible. This applies particularly to tea, coffee and sugar where we want all supplies to be FairTrade. It applies also to wines, fruit juice, chocolate, and other items. Again, we'd like to know about caterers’ FairTrade suppliers, and we should offer to put them in touch with FairTrade suppliers if they don't know them.

3.3 All beer should be supplied by small or independent breweries in North Yorkshire

3.4 Recognising that cider and perry production is minimal in North Yorkshire, we will source much of our cider from elsewhere in the UK, but will seek to combine supplies in order to minimize delivery miles

3.5 Soft drinks will be sourced and produced locally, or imported Fair Trade fruit juices.

3.6 Food packaging, cutlery etc must be minimal and re-usable or biodegradable

3.7 Caterers must commit to recycling and composting – both their own waste and that of their customers – we must provide well-labeled and well-lit facilities

3.8 We’d like to encourage interest in food growing, particularly among young people, perhaps through the development of a festival garden. Our charity funding may also support activity in this area.

3.9 We’d like to encourage interest in food preparation and cooking, through demonstrations, workshops and other participatory events within the festival.