Food firms should target festivals for new business

31-Jul-2014 - Last updated on 04-Aug-2014 at 09:22 GMT

Taking the right approach at music festivals could boost business for food and drink firms

Food and drink firms should target UK music festivals to engage with thousands of potential new consumers, according to the boss of Genius Foods.

Genius Foods ceo Roz Cuschieri told FoodManufacture.co.uk that festivals provided a great opportunity to engage with people and tell them about your brand when they had free time and were more willing to try something new.

“What we were aiming to do last summer – and the weather helped – was to pop up in places where people wouldn’t expect us to,” she said.

“Family music festivals and town centres – these are the best ways to get people to try something they wouldn’t normally.”

Free toast

Last year the gluten-free bakery firm offered free toast to hungry revellers at the Cornbury Festival in Oxfordshire, Latitude festival in Suffolk and Rewind festival in Henley-on-Thames.

“If you know your target market, you hunt for ways to get to them and that was what worked for us,” Cuschieri claimed.

Posh ready-meal manufacturer Charlie Bigham’s has also felt the benefit of engaging with festival-goers. The London-based firm sold its range of pies and ready meals to people at Isle of Wight music festival Bestival. Bestival 2013 was attended by 50,000 people.

Founder of the firm, Charlie Bigham, said: “We are keen to get out there and tell people about our brand – there is a whole wealth of ways to do that. This includes getting people to have a taste at a festival.

“We experimented with this at last year’s Bestival. We like to spend money wisely and get the maximum bang for our buck.”

Charlie Bigham is one of six candidates to be crowned Food manufacturing Personality of the year at this year’s Food Manufacturing Excellence Awards.

To find out who the other nominees are, view our photogallery.

Going one better than selling its product at a festival is Cornish cider firm Healeys.

Healeys has signed a two-year sponsorship deal with the UK’s largest surf and music festival, Boardmasters.

Principal sponsor

Its Rattler brand is one of the principal sponsors for the festival, which takes place between August 6 and 10, 2014 in Cornwall.

Joe Healey, commercial director at Healeys, said: “The festival and Rattler brand have such a great synergy that a two-year partnership makes absolute sense. Last year we sold 65,000 pints of Rattler and with the festival selling an extra 10,000 tickets this year we’re predicting that we might even reach 80,000 pints.”

Rattler was also chosen as the official cider for the Eden Project’s series of music festivals the Eden Sessions.