Sunshine draws huge attendance for Melton food festival weekend

Paul Hartland (left) on the Mrs King's Pork Pies stand and Laura Davies and Jack Kirton on The Mouse House stall, at the East Midlands Food Festival at Melton

Visitors from as far afield as the United States of America browsed dozens of stalls at the Stockyard, on the Melton Mowbray livestock market site, taking the opportunity to taste test and buy a wide range of delicious food and drink.

Organisers estimate the attendance for the two days at around 10,000, which is the highest for many years.

One of the busiest stands was Mrs King’s Pork Pies, where the firm’s traditional Melton Mowbray pork pies were selling like hot cakes.

Charlie Shakespeare (right) and Johan Van der Feijst on the Brockleby's Pies stand at Melton's East Midlands Food Festival

Paul Hartland (69), who sold the business to Samworth Brothers after running it for 35 years, was one of those selling on Saturday.

He told the Melton Times: “It’s been a good day for us, we’ve sold all of our 300 Melton Mowbray pork pies.

"People come here expecting to be able to buy an authentic pork pie and we have had a lot of people asking for them today.”

The company was founded in in 1853 in the old market square in Nottingham by Mrs Elizabeth King.

Visitors from America with local family members meet Melton's own Samosa Wallah at Melton's East Midlands Food Festival

In the 1960s, Ken Parr – who started up Pork Farms – bought the brand.

Paul added: “Ken was my wife’s grandfather and he taught me how to make pork pies.

"We use machines for part of the process now but they are still hand-finished in the traditional way. We probably make 1,000 pies a week.”

The pies are made at the Dickinson and Morris Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe and they are mainly now sold at the Mrs Kings stall at Burrough Market in London.

Another local producer which enjoyed bumper sales at the festival was Asfordby Hill-based Brockleby’s Pies.

Charlie Shakespeare and Johan Van der Feijst were manning the stall and proudly showing off the Supreme Champion trophy the company won at the British Pie Awards in Melton in March.

Their Moo and Blue – a steak, ale and Stilton cheese pie – beat off competition from 900 entries was in big demand.

Johan told the Melton Times: “People have been in a good mood today with the amazing weather and sales have been really good.

“A lot of people have asked for the Moo and Blue. Winning at the pie awards has definitely been good for us.”

He said there had also been good sales of their penguin pie, which doesn’t contain any penguin but a tasty blend of smoked haddock, cheese, onion and potato instead.

There were plenty of cheese to try at the festival including those on The Mouse House stand.

It mainly makes Cheddars and Leicester reds using milk from the herd on the family farm.

Laura Davies, who was on the stand with Jack Kirton, said: “This festivals is one of our best during the year and we’ve nearly sold out today.”

Visitors from California and New Jersey dropped in while they were staying locally for a wedding.

They said had heard about it being listed by the New York Times as one of the world’s most interesting food festivals.

The Americans bought tea, chocolate and pork pies and were looking forward to trying them later on.