A Visit to Devon County Show 21 May 2015, Exeter

I went along to the show with my mother-in-law.  We headed straight to the food tent where we sampled many wonderful things including many prize-winning cheeses, chutney and the recently launched, delicious and versatile Shute Fruit raspberry vinegar.

Devon County Show at Westpoint near Exeter, is on 21-23 May 2015 (Thurs to Sat, not Sunday as many people think) and it is a great day out: there is a huge food tent, many stalls promoting things as diverse as tractors, care homes, local newspapers and windows!  There are also many things for children to get involved with - one good thing was the BBC tent where there was live music, some local newsreaders, lots of seating and friendship bracelets for the children to make for charity.

There were many tempting food vans selling their wares too.  We had a Farmer Tom's ice cream (honeycomb flavour) and a refreshing Bloom Berry juice.  Was the placing of the Hog Roast van at the end of the pig sheds an accident or not?!  Perhaps you needed to be a farmer to get that joke.

We saw many weird and wonderful animals: so many different breeds of chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, ponies, cattle and more...The sun was shining and it was really good to be outdoors.

This duck was very big!

We also enjoyed mooching around the traders' stalls and watching the animals being judged.  We didn't necessarily understand the criteria, but it was good to watch regardless.

 I think that it seemed a bit smaller (possibly after last year when torrential rain meant that the final day,Saturday, was cancelled and cars had to be taken out of the car parks by tractor on the Friday) but the show was still enormous, well-attended, really interesting and more than enough for me to see in one day (10am - 2pm).  The show was definitely quieter in the morning and got gradually busier as the afternoon progressed.

The Source Trade Show, Exeter Westpoint: Food and Drink

Today I visited the Source Trade Show at Exeter Westpoint.  There were lots of interesting exhibitors.   I was concentrating on the Devon and Cornish foodie ones - there were quite a lot of both.  There were also many visitors.  I really liked these products from the Coast and Country Range from Proctor and Clark.

I know that we have plenty of great food and drink on our doorstep in Devon but apparently Devon has been named as the 'best place to live in the UK' (according to a survey by Country Life).

Devon came top in five categories: the best for green credentials, local food, pubs, heritage and landscape.  I think this helped the attendance of the show.  Devon is a desirable 'market'.

I cannot fault the show - pleasant wardens in the car parks, the door was opened to me as I entered the building, swift ticketing, clean loos, plenty of interesting exhibitors and a good opportunity to look at and sample wares and talk to others.  The place was busy but not overly crowded and the popular stalls had many people around them.  Hopefully, this will prove a successful event for clients, suppliers, the show organisers and Westpoint.

I would like to give a special mention to Jeff at Taste Buds Magazine, Hayley from Food and Drink Devon and Raw PR, Ben at Bird and Wild Coffee ....

....and the people at Devon and Cornwall Food Association who are a charity and give excess food and drink to people in need; and the free pasty courtesy of Proper Cornish.