Manchester Food and Drink Festival 2016 (MFDF) was the most successful of all time according to all the data collected by the Festival as part of their post-event evaluation.
The 19th annual MFDF took place from 29th September – 10th October in Manchester city centre and beyond.
The Festival Hub on Albert Square was the centre piece of the Festival – a specially built food village that featured street food, beer fests, gin fests, pop up restaurants, chef demos, mini festivals and more.
The free to attend Festival Hub attracted over 100,000 visitors to the Square over the 11 days it was open.
And during that time…
23,000 Pints of Beer were drunk.
5000 glasses of wine were quaffed.
849 pop up restaurant plates devoured.
20m of pizza were scoffed.
7000 Gin and Tonics were served up from a range of 15 gins and the whole selection of Fever-Tree mixers (approximately 90 possible combinations of G&T!). This equates to around 50,000 cubes of ice and over 500 lemons, limes and other fruit for garnish.
£3000 raised for Action Against Hunger
3000 hot dogs munched.
12,000 churros chomped and 150kg of chocolate dipped.
Elsewhere in the city the Festival staged more successful events than ever before…. 84 events and offers were staged and enjoyed, with a record number of those selling out. 1201 tickets sold across all MFDF events.
Sell out events included:
Espana Moderna with El Gato Negro
Celebrating 10 years of Hawksmoor
Real Junk Food Manchester Presents: The Binner Party
Robert Owen Brown’s Edwardian themed supper club
Experimental Vegan Banquet with Jackie Kearney
Baratxuri Pop Up Pinto Bar
At the MFDF Gala Dinner and Awards more awards than ever before were distributed with 5 new categories added, making a total of 17 prizes distributed.
Phil Jones, Festival Founding Director, commented: “This year’s Festival was an astounding success – we are still collecting the economic impact data, but wanted to share our first set of stats straight away! The Festival Hub this year was a true representation of Manchester’s fantastic gastronomic offer and our wonderfully diverse population.
“It is an inclusive event enjoyed by a huge range of Greater Manchester’s communities and cultures. We are a world-class city built on diversity, talent and innovation and our food festival reflects that year on year. We’re busy planning the 20th Anniversary Festival next year and will be back to announce the date soon!”