The perks of bringing the UK’s largest cheese festival to Staffordshire

Blog, by Phil Carter, Staffordshire Ambassador and Director at Ornua Foods.

Food festivals take place throughout the world, bringing together people over a common love of food. So how do these events benefit the places in which we live?

Love Cheese Live will be taking place at Stafford County Showground. One of the UK’s largest cheese, food & drink festivals, the two-day event includes cooking inspiration, shopping and tasting – including a fantastic line-up of the best chefs and experts cooking live, the finest dairy brands, exciting new flavours, the latest trends and carefully selected independent producers of the finest food, drink and culinary products from all over the world.

Having been on the event organising committee for the last few years, this event was traditionally held in Cheshire, however in 2023, I’m delighted to say it will be taking place at the centre of our County at the Staffordshire County Showground, Stafford, and a place that we hope to call home for many years to come.

Staffordshire is an ideal location for an event such as this and the County Showground offers excellent facilities for both exhibitors and visitors alike. And its not just about the location (although being in the heart of the country has its obvious benefits), the county has such as rich agricultural and food heritage, also the amazing range of accommodation and hospitality choices for our domestic and international visitors make the decision to move to Staffordshire an obvious choice.

The event will be attracting over 6,000 people to visit and potentially stay in Staffordshire during the two-day event. It won’t only be a chance to show off what a fantastic county we are, but we’ll also be showcasing over 50 local small producers at the event.

It’s a chance for local businesses in the area, and the surrounding town centres to get involved, host events and offers for the international audience that will be attending for the two days.

Love Cheese Live is the public event which follows the International Cheese and Dairy Awards, which is a trade event taking place the day before. This is the most prestigious and largest event of its type in the world; it attracts over 5,500 entries every year and has been going strong for over 125 years.

Participants come from all over the globe to take part and this year we have a strong contingency from Canada and the US as well as Australia and Italy. At this event we also host many retail food buyers at the show and it’s a great chance for suppliers to showcase their products in front of companies like Tesco, Morrisons, COOP, Sainsburys and Waitrose

Having producers and retailers descend from far and wide it’s an obvious opportunity for us to showcase what an amazing county we live in, to be proud of our wonderful local produce and to encourage future investment into Staffordshire and I can’t wait for this year’s event to get going!

For the cheese lovers and those wanting to attend, you can book half-price tickets on the website for Friday 28th June with the code ENJOYSTAFFS.

You can also enter the competition to win free tickets to Love Cheese Live here.

Ornua Foods, based in Staffordshire Moorlands is largest cheese supplier to UK retail, and responsible for the global marketing and production of two of the UK’s much loved food brands; Pilgrims Choice and Kerrygold. Ornua are key supporters and headline sponsors of the event.