Rochester, MN – The third annual Feast! festival and tradeshow is filling up, but still has room for more food and beverage businesses to apply to attend the event on Dec. 2-3, 2016, at the Mayo Civic Center, Rochester, Minn.
A combination tradeshow and festival, the award-winning Feast! Local Foods Marketplace hosts more than 100 vendors from Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota who show, sample and sell their artisan food products to wholesale buyers on Friday, Dec. 2, and to consumers. on Saturday, Dec. 3. The jury-selected exhibitors also have a half-day of networking and sharing about best practices for growing their small food businesses. Businesses selected to attend and exhibit are operating at a distributor-ready scale and utilizing locally-grown ingredients in their supply chains. (See the 2016 exhibitors here.)
After Feast! 2015, 64 percent of exhibitors surveyed reported that the event helped them find wholesale buyers for their products. Additional benefits of the event reported were on-site sales, strengthening relationships, meeting new buyers, networking, and boosting brand awareness. One exhibitor said, “Gaining exposure for my products and networking with potential clients and other vendors makes Feast! worthwhile to me.”
The two-day event offers entrepreneurs the ability to focus on growing their business and meeting buyers on day one, and making direct connections with consumers on day two.
For more information about attending as a consumer, an exhibitor, or food-buying professional, please visit www.local-feast.org or email Eli at: eli@local-feast.org. To keep in touch with the latest updates, ‘like’ us at FEAST Local Food Network on Facebook, follow @Local_Feast on Twitter, and use #localFEAST to make sure your voice is heard.
Feast! Local Foods Marketplace is co-hosted by the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation and Renewing the Countryside nonprofit organizations and is supported with premiere sponsorship by Mayo Clinic, the McKnight Foundation and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. FEAST Local Food Network received the 2016 Environmental Initiative Food Stewardship Award in May for its impact on the region's food businesses and support of sustainable practices (see: environmentalinitiative.org).
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