Chris Dobney
The weather smiled on Bangalow’s Sample Food Festival again last Saturday, with the biggest crowed ever descending on the Bangalow Showgrounds to taste the produce of restaurants, cafes, caterers and providores from around the region.
Co-organiser Remy Tancred said she estimated 13-14,000 punters, based on the number of plates sold and cars parked on the day.
Some 28 stallholders (up from 26 last year) sold on average 900 plates each, with a number of new faces among them.
Such was the popularity of the event that by 2pm many dishes were finished and ‘between three and four o’clock people were running right out of everything,’ Ms Tancred said.
She added that for this reason alone, she would not be revisiting the idea of extending the event to dinner time, as happened a couple of years ago.
‘There’s no point in extending for dinner. It’s already long day for stallholders and it adds a whole extra degree of difficulty. To be honest the extra expense not worth the stress,’ Remy told Echonetdaily.
Each year the plates are judged and this year’s judges were Alex Herbert, Darren Simpson, Scott Gooding and Luke Hines.
In a very surprising result, desserts won both categories.
‘Never before have desserts won both the $5 and $10 plate prizes,’ said Remy.
Town Bangalow won the $5 plate for its Japanese cheesecake while Puremelt chocolate won the $10 plate for its trio of raw chocolate.
Remy says she already has a couple of exciting personalities lined up for next year.
‘We’ll be adding a couple more ticketed events around the festival next year for the fifth year,’ she said.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
