By Elliott Patrice – 

Huddersfield Food and Drink Festival was cancelled at the last minute yesterday after days of rain, and flooding at Greenhead Park, the new location of the Festival after moving from St George Square. This last-minute cancellation has caused massive problems for the vendors involved in the event. Many small local businesses had spent vast amounts of time and money preparing for the Festival.

Being so last minute has made it incredibly difficult for those smaller businesses to arrange to attend other events. This has put a lot of pressure on these businesses which may struggle to deal with the effects of this cancellation.

We spoke to Lindon Nugent who owns Hummusfield, a small business that provides locally made and good quality Hummas: “I currently have 100kg of hummus prepared for the festival which now has to be sold and eaten in a week, fun times.”

“I was doing 9 am-1 am in the kitchen every day this week. I truly am a one-person small business, I got staff in this week and emptied my savings to get prepared for it spending between 1.5k-2k on packaging, ingredients, etc.”

After going through all this effort, time, and money, Lindon described his moment of finding out about the cancellation and how that has left him feeling.

“I turned up yesterday at 4pm hearing nothing. I arrived at the site and eventually found someone who eventually told me it had been cancelled. I then at 5pm received an email telling of the cancellations. I’m tired, and broken from the week and disappointed. This is my first year as a proper business and this was my major Event so truly disheartening to have lost all that time effort and money.”

Natalie Woodford of The Singing Pineapple Catering Company witnessed the attempts from the organisers of the Food and Drink Festival to make the event work. Doing everything in their power to put on the event for the public and the vendors, but the weather has just made it impossible to put on the event.

“I was there very early yesterday and saw the efforts of the organisers, and I saw them in tears, which is an awful thing to see. And we all have to be sympathetic and no one wanted this outcome. But here we are. In terms of accessibility and enjoyment factor, I really think it was probably the only decision that could be made.”

Natalie also spoke of the goodwill of the people of Huddersfield in supporting these vendors during this difficult time.

“Certainly the people of Huddersfield are always brilliant in these circumstances and they sent so many messages from people that are offering help or asking what they could do. So that’s awesome.”

Lindon and some of the other vendors are trying to get an alternative food and drink event arranged. Things are still in the early stages, but we will keep everyone updated on where and when the new event will take place. We also suggest everyone check out the social media of the vendors and see what you can do to support some of these local businesses.