Lining up to attend the upcoming Foodies Festival in Oxfordshire at the end of August, chefs and food aficionados alike are eagerly anticipating the three-day event to be held over the long bank holiday weekend.

Taking place in the university town’s South Park, there will be stalls with an abundance of fine food and wine for festival attendees, with Michelin-starred and other leading chefs also there to demonstrate their expertise.

In addition to the ‘chefs theatre’ there will be food and drink masterclasses, involving presentations every hour by industry experts who will use tasting and sampling and allowing connoisseurs to impart their culinary knowledge, as well as a young chef masterclass, designed to help teach children the basics of cooking and how to eat healthily.

Festival spokesperson Roben Hera commented on the expected scale of the event, “We are hoping about 15,000 people will turn up over the weekend for all the live demos, food and drink master classes and live entertainment.”

This is reportedly the first occasion that Oxford has been host to the event, previous locations having included Edinburgh and Hampton Court Palace.

Meanwhile in other food industry news, Compass Group has announced the acquisition of Indian food service provider, Tirumala Hospitality Services Private (THS). The gross assets of the THS business were said to be worth £1.4 million at the end of fiscal year 2009-2010, with revenue for the 12 months ending 31 March 2010 reaching £3.7 million.

Posted by Phil on the 23rd August 2010