The fun doesn’t end after Abergavenny Food Festival wraps up – all the year there are ways to get involved in Abergavenny’s vibrant food culture, with a host of community dinners, grow-your-own initiatives, political debates and social get-togethers, and more.
Abergavenny Transition Town
Abergavenny Transition Town is a group of local people concerned to make Abergavenny and its surrounding area more resilient in the face of changing climate and physical and financial resources. Through their fantastic sub-groups, some of which are listed below, Abergavenny Transition get community members involved and keep the local community food- and energy-aware.
Abergavenny Community Canteen
Enjoy a two-course meal once a month at the Community Canteen. Planned and prepped by volunteers, the meal is vegetarian, using locally sourced ingredients which are organic or Fairtrade. Donations support local or international social projects, and there’ll be local musicians, storytellers and poets to guarantee a fun evening. To get involved, email jeremygass@yahoo.co.uk, or visit the link above for more information.
Just Food
Just Food is an Abergavenny-based group of local people who promote political debate around food and hunger. The group works to raise awareness on social justice and sustainability issues and in the last year have drafted their Manifesto for Food Justice for Wales. The Manifesto is available to read and open for comments here.
Community Orchards
Established in 2011, the Community Orchards and Gardens CIC take forward community fruit and vegetable growing projects in the Abergavenny and surrounding hinterland. The trees are a mix of dessert, culinary and cider apples, dessert and Perry pears, plums, damsons and cherries, quince and medlar. The group’s activities are ‘a local response to a global consciousness’, aimed at getting younger people involved and helping them gain the skills of food production, as well preserving local varieties and biodiversity. For offers to volunteer and help with the orchard’s upkeep, get in touch with Jane Llewelyn Dixon at jane.llewellyndixon@btopenworld.com.
Incredible Edible Abergavenny
Want to learn to grow your own food, or taste how delicious freshly-picked veggies can be? The Incredible Edible team can help you! Get involved with digging veggie beds, growing fruit trees and watering herbs, or help yourself to fresh produce in public spaces around town. Incredible Edible Abergavenny wants to involve as many people as possible in growing food, and you don’t need any previous knowledge to help out. Get in touch via their Facebook group to learn how you can grow and source food in a planet-friendly way.
Find out about Abergavenny Transition’s other sub-groups, and new projects on the way, by clicking on the Groups tab on their website: abergavennytransition.org
Abergavenny Community Centre Kitchen Project
From monthly World Bistro dinners to weekly community lunches, coffee mornings and workshops, the Kitchen Project is getting people together and bringing new cultures, recipes and flavours to the community. Using local produce and supporting small businesses, meals are tasty and nutritious. The Kitchen Project also works with Tesco’s FareShare scheme, as well as other supermarkets and individuals, to redirect surplus food for locals to use. To get involved, head to their website, or email aber.hub@gmail.com.
Peak Cymru’s Market Hall Art Installation
Each Summer, Peak (formerly Arts Alive Wales) team up with textile artist Bettina Reeves to create the annual art installation that we all know and love. The artworks, based around themes of food and rural life, are suspended from the roof of the Market Hall and are a much-loved feature of our annual Festival, and stay up all year-round. For this year’s project, Bettina has chosen the theme of A Moveable Feast. If you would like to get involved in this unique project (and are over the age of 16), email rachel@peak.cymru with your name and confirm if you can attend the scheduled craft sessions. Work begins on Tuesday 28 August at Peak’s Crickhowell studio, and the project runs daily (except Sundays) until Wednesday 12 September.