Today I visited the Liverpool Food and Drink Festival. I had initially planned on going to the Good Food Show in London to gather primary research, however when I asked people about it who had already been in the past, they explained that it isn't as closely related to food as you would imagine, as they have more gadgets than they do food products. I therefore decided that it wouldn't be as worthwhile me making the journey to London for it, and instead searched for more local events. This being on of them.
I went on a Sunday, hoping that it may be slightly less busy and I would get an opportunity to speak to more people this way. However when I arrived it was still extremely busy as the weather was lovely! I took some photographs to document the day and to use for inspiration for my practical as well as my essay.
At the moment, as I am considering designing something to help reduce bread waste, I took as many photographs as I could which related to this topic. I didn't know whether the photography may be useful at a later date, depending on what I decide to design.
I also wanted to have references to all of the different brands and organisations that were there. There were a lot of restaurants from Liverpool holding their own stands to promote their offers and their products. It was therefore interesting to see how they distributed their food and what containers they used to store it all in. Whether they were being sustainable or not.
I also quite liked the variety of signage which was on show. I thought it might be a good idea to photograph this as well as I may need to create my own branding at some stage within my development and I quite like the idea of creating something which has quite a hand rendered feel to it like this example below.
As well as there being lots of restaurants in Liverpool with their own stand, there were also quite a few independent businesses. I quite liked how a lot of the food was presented in individual baskets as it gave it a rustic, home made feeling.
I also really loved this packaging. The branding is so simple yet so effective and memorable. If I end up branding my own product range I would definitely take inspiration from this example. I also think it is really lovely the way the brown boxes have been used to package the products, giving a sustainable feel to the packaging.
I also quite like the idea of creating a range of products, based around bread. So for example I could redesign the bread packaging as well as some other products which complement bread, such as different flavoured oils.
This stand was interesting as they were a similar kind of company to Graze and Abel and Cole who all distribute fresh products within the UK. Again, I quite liked their branding and the simplicity of it. The brown paper bags were recycled as well.
I think this photograph could work really well if I need any to use for my practical outcome. All of them were taken on an SLR so they are all high quality which is good.
A lot of the packaging hadn't really been considered as much as it could have been, for example, here the distributor has simply bought a variety of different coloured boxes and stuck their branding on to it. It would be even better if all of the boxes could then be used for something else after they have finished eating the food inside.
As I was walking around I came across the Love Food Hate Waste area. I had read online that they would be at the Food Festival and was really interested in looking closer to find out more information. Below are some photographs which were taken in their particular area. They had a larger space than most and were raising people's awareness on food and drink waste in the UK.
Behind their stand they had an indoor marquee with lots more to engage with. There was a lot of information about composting and there was an opportunity for people to engage with a lot of the items they had on display.
When they weren't too busy, I saw it as an opportunity to try and talk to someone there to find out more information. They gave me this questionnaire to fill in at first, which was simply asking me basic questions about waste and how I feel towards it. This then enabled me to receive a free cooler bag with lots of different things inside. Including a spaghetti measure, rice scoop, clip to keep food fresh, as well as pens and a magnetic board to go on the fridge. I was really happy when I received all of these items as it instantly sparked off a few ideas in my mind.
I was fortunate enough to then be introduced to a man called Tony Scott who was in charge. I explained that I am a graphic design student currently gathering as much research as possible for my dissertation to enable me to come up with a suitable title and ideas for my practical. I said I had a particular interest in food and packaging waste and love the idea of trying to create packaging which enables food waste to be minimised.
Tony was extremely enthusiastic and gave me his details. He said that if I contacted him and organised a visit, I could go in to their office and he would give me lots of statistics and the opportunity to discuss ideas further.
I therefore felt over the moon at this point because it had made the whole day really worthwhile and I feel as though I am making really positive progress, which is wanted I wanted to achieve over the Summer holidays.
One thing I did notice was the fact that there were very few recyclable bins around the venue, and at such a large event it is probably really hard to keep track of waste, which is why it is so important that people are aware of the impacts.
In the marquee they also had a lot of free standing banners like the ones pictured below. I wanted a visual reference of these but ended up being given a lot of free leaflets by Tony anyway, which had a lot of the information printed on them.
Below are a selection of the leaflets which were given to me. Interestingly, I was given a lot of information about Tesco, this is because Love Food Hate Waste have a huge involvement with Tesco and are currently implementing a variety of schemes to help reduce their food and packaging waste. I definitely think that there is potential here for development.
