Hard to stomach

Back in the mid to late 00s, I was a regular at Abergavenny Food Festival. It felt like there was no better way to spend a September Saturday than by snacking and sampling your way around the stalls, as just one of many attendees attracted by the market town's transformation into a foodie paradise. The sun always seemed to shine; one year, somewhat surprisingly, one of the sponsorship partners was the record label Domino, which meant excellent freebies; and it's where I tasted a cheddar so spectacularly good that I still remember it vividly more than a decade on.

So it was disheartening and disillusioning to read this piece by former chief executive Aine Morris setting out how, in her behind-the-scenes experience, the festival is a total shitshow (or, at least, had become one by the time she left in 2019). As she describes it, the problems are/were legion: stuck-in-their-ways bosses; unacceptable employment conditions; non-existent production systems; slashed budgets; unpaid guest speakers; and a broken relationship with residents, sick of their town being inundated by English visitors drawn to an event catering only for those with deep pockets, and no effort to repair it.

Morris acknowledges that had she laid bare these issues soon after her departure, it may well have been "dismissed as an angry takedown by a disgruntled ex-employee" - and indeed it still might be. Publishing the piece on the eve of the festival may also strike some people as cynical, designed to be as explosive as possible. But the fact is that it shines a spotlight on alarming and precarious practices behind what is (on the surface) a well-run and well-regarded annual institution, and on the physical and mental toll on the organisers. If the problems haven't been fixed since Morris left, then there's much work to be done.