Record Number of Cheeseries WOW Visitors at SA Cheese Festival

2009 SA Cheese Festival

The very successful SA Cheese Festival that took place over the past weekend (24 – 27 April) has established itself as one of the leading events in the country recognized for its culinary excellence and social enjoyment. "The outstanding quality of South African cheeses, as well as the creative variety of related products, has made the festival a highlight on any food lover's calendar," says Johan Ehlers, CEO of Agri-Expo, the organisers of the SA Cheese Festival. "The festival is the ideal place to showcase the rich variety the South African dairy industry has to offer."

According to Ehlers the limitation on attendance numbers has contributed to the positive experience of the public. Despite the rainy weather on Saturday, the festival drew close to 29 000 visitors and on two of the four days tickets were sold out (8 000 visitors are allowed in per day). For the SA Cheese Festival this was a year of records: it attracted the most ever exhibitors including the most ever new boutique style cheeseries as well as a record number of interesting related products that complement cheese. Also the programme in the Cooking Pot drew larger than usual crowds to the cooking antics of Nataniël and highly informative and entertaining demonstrations by top notch chefs such as the 2008 SA chef of the year, George Jardine, and Giggling Gourmet Jenny Morris. This year's festival also gave the young ones a much larger choice of entertainment with favourite cartoon characters, music and games to keep them busy.

"We were blown away by the fantastic response that we received at this year's SA Cheese Festival," says Paúla Hinks, marketing manager of the Rhodes Food Group who won the award for the best stand for boutique style cheeseries under their Portobello brand. "The genuine interest displayed by visitors to the stand was admirable. People did not visit the stand just for a free tasting but showed interest in the range, our production process as well as in distribution and stocking of the range. The morning after we already started receiving orders from festival visitors." The other prizes for exceptional stalls went to Boschendal in the wine category, Marc's Mediterranean Cuisine for the winning stall in the Gourmet Lane, Mannamakers for cheese-related products, Checkers for the best national cheese stall, while Fleckvieh received the honours as the best stall in the Milk Factory.

The popularity of the SA Cheese Festival will ensure that cheese lovers will be afforded an opportunity to once again experience the richness of the SA cheese industry next year from 24 – 27 April.