Food festival expected to bring £1.5m boost

Jack Stein was among the guests giving cookery demonstrations

A two-day food festival is expected to once again have given a coastal town a boost of about £1.5m.

Now in its fifth year, the Taste of the Sea event at Maryport, in Cumbria, took over two sites at the harbour with stallholders, a music stage, kite display and children's play area.

Jack Stein, son of chef Rick Stein, was among the guests.

Cumberland Council leader Mark Fryer said he was confident visitor numbers would match the 20,000 from last year.

A demonstration stage was erected at the town's new events space, which has been created as part of £12m government funding for regeneration projects in the area.

It hosted Masterchef winner Irini Tzortzoglou, from Cartmel.

Music and a kite display added to the food offerings

Stuart Eve, of Born and Bread Bakers which has a shop in the town centre, was one of the stallholders taking part across the weekend.

He said on Saturday: "We've been really busy. We started baking at four o'clock this morning, made about 200 loaves as well as sausage rolls, cinnamon rolls, scones and all of that kind of stuff.

"It all just about sold out in two hours."

Stein said: "You see when you come to these festivals, people are really, really into food these days.

"Festivals like this wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. It just shows how eating well - and eating locally - is."

The event was blessed with sunny weather for much of the weekend

Fryer said attendance looked to be in line, or better, than 2024 with a similar financial impact expected.

"Last year I think we had about 20,000 people here, probably bringing about £1.5m into the local economy," he explained.

He added the authority hoped to repeat the success of the event with similar festivals at Cockermouth and Carlisle in the coming months.