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We’re proud to be a partner of the Bolton Food and Drink Festival again this year

We’re proud to be a partner of the Bolton Food and Drink Festival again this year

We're a proud partner of the Bolton Food and Drink Festival, which has rightly become one of the town’s most anticipated summer events and a cultural highlight of our year.

Taking place from Friday 26 August to Monday 29 August, expect:

  • a diverse blend of food, drink, and arts/crafts stalls,
  • celebrity chef demos from The Hairy Bikers, Ainsley Harriott, and James Martin,
  • two fantastic music stages- including the Festival Music stage on Le Mans Crescent (with daily headline acts and local musical talent),
  • and no-cost children’s activities in the Children’s Marquee on Le Mans Crescent.

Our CEO, Jon Lord, best sums up why we’ve remained a keen supporter of Bolton Food and Drink Festival over the years: “what we love about the festival is that it showcases the town’s vibrancy and the skill of our local producers, growers, bakers, brewers, chefs, and home-kitchen cooks.”

“Most importantly, it brings communities together. Food and drink unite us and it’s great to see people appreciating the cuisine of different countries and cultures as one.”

Image of the Backup Coffee Van with Backup CEO Maura Jackson.

As an organisation, we’re also proud to support local charities and enterprise. It’s why we’ve donated one of our stall spaces at the festival to Backup (backup-charity.org.uk), who’ll be using their coffee van (pictured above with the charity's CEO, Maura Jackson) to raise funds for their housing and support services for homeless young people in Bolton.

Through their passionate staff, the Backup team provides a safe and stable place for young people to develop their confidence and life skills, enabling independence.

Image of Lee Wakeham, Director of HM Pasties Ltd.

And thanks to our friends from Proper Good, we've also been able to link up with and donate our second stall space to HMPasties Ltd, who'll share a stall with Proper Good colleagues to showcase great food and great social enterprise (learn more about Proper Good and social enterprise below*).

Read the story of the business and its founder, Lee Wakeham (pictured above) at: hmpasties.com/about-us.

Please support them during the festival if you can. Thank you.

*Learn more about 'Proper Good' social enterprise

Like other businesses, social enterprises seek to make a profit and succeed commercially- but how they operate, who they employ, how they use their profits, and where they work transforms lives and communities.

A new programme- called ‘Proper Good’, offers free-to-access business support, networking and training led by entrepreneurs who know how to run social enterprises that do good in their communities. Individuals on the programme can also apply for social investment to grow their businesses and scale their impact.

So, if you have a ‘Proper Good’ idea or business that aims to make a positive difference in Bolton, click here to visit the Proper Good Bolton Facebook page to learn more about the support available through the programme (it's designed to help no matter what stage of the business journey you’re on – from start-up to scale-up). You'll also be able to find out more about the Proper Good support available by visiting HM Pasties' stall at the Food and Drink Festival.

BTW: Our subsidiary Starts with you is a social enterprise. It offers a range of People and Property Services to business and the public, which you can learn more about here: www.startswithyou.org.uk.

Starts with you’s Managing Director, Hayley Hulme (pictured below, right), is part of the Bolton steering group for Proper Good.

Proper Good promotional image featuring Hayley Hulme, Managing Director of our social enterprise subsidiary, Starts with you Bolton.