The environment, food and agriculture minister has admitted there were flaws using the agricultural shows as a replacement for this year's Food and Drink Festival.
The government-run event, which was cancelled in June, would have been taking place on the 14 and 15 September.
A previously agreed exclusivity agreement meant the Southern and Royal Manx shows weren't accessible to all producers or manufacturers.
But Clare Barber told Amy Griffiths she's confident there'll be a more suitable alternative next year:
Hi there, I'm Amy Griffiths and I'm one of the journalists in Monks Radio's Newsroom and you're listening to Newscast. Football was great. Both shows were very fortunate with the weather. I was on the gate actually at the southern shows. I see many people, many familiar faces coming through and then spent some time in the deficit and had the opportunity to talk to some of the people who were coming through there as well. But I think both shows, there was really good football. There was people really coming along wanting to see the products, wanting to both see the activities that were going on in the main show ring as you'd expect, see the livestock, but also then come and buy produce and you saw plenty of people with their bags full of goodies that they'd bought and I think that's really great news. The obvious question is then, do you think now that two shows have happened, do you think that that's an astutable alternative model instead of the food and drink festival? No, and I think we've been clear, this year that's going to be our increased presence, but actually longer term there's something more that we can offer and we want something and I think I've talked a little bit about this before, something that can really cover a number of different producers and we recognize that different stages in people's life as a business, they need different things and we want to be very much working closer with department for enterprise. We had a session with some of the producers after the shows in Defe, which Claire Christian's been leading on, she's been really focused in on this project with her background in business as well and it's been really helpful having her in Defe. Just to talk about where the opportunities lie, where the challenges are, where there are things that we need to do a little bit more and one of the big messages that came out was actually we really need to work closer with DFE, so at the minute people work with Defe, if they're working on Ireland, but if they're exporting, they can move into DFE and actually that feels like it's a little bit too binary, we need something a little bit more fluid, so that's very much a position we want to take in developing the sort of suite of new things that we want to put on and the first one we've got coming up is meet the producer on the 23rd of this month, which is an opportunity for some of those people who haven't managed to get into maybe the stores to go and speak to different people, whether they be restaurateurs, whether they be small retailers or some of our larger retailers to actually look at whether there's an opportunity for them to put their product in. And it's all well and good being able to say we are working on something bigger, we are working on an alternative, we are doing things in the meantime, but actually the timing of this in a year when the production costs for many producers and manufacturers is going up and up and up all the time, we've had the closure of Shopripe, which was a massive supporter of local and while Tesco is trying to do its best to support local where it can, it can't compete with the provision that Shopripe was able to have, so was this the right year to say okay we're going to cancel the food and drink festival completely? So I think we can always reflect and acknowledge that timing, I regret that we didn't notify people earlier to give them the alternatives, I think however we simply weren't in a position to be able to deliver that internally this year, there were significant challenges, we'd talked about the risks that existed having had two years where we'd almost had to cancel, so there were some significant challenges and thoughts around that internally and we have looked also then put additional alternatives in for this year, whether that be through supporting other events and some of that we've done in partnership with DFE through directing people to domestic events fund, but also a really good conversation we've been having around leveraging opportunities perhaps at Manks Grand Prix and TT, that's been really positive talking with partners in DFE, specifically around the motorsports agency and they're very keen to see both how we can support people to actually exhibit and have their produce available, but also to look at how we can make sure that the bigger outlets at those events are able to access local produce to service their needs, so it's sort of a two-pronged piece, our officers are working very closely around that, we did have an opportunity to put some smaller producers at Manks Grand Prix, but it was very short notice, so I think in the end only one person was able to take that up and obviously with the weather that was a challenge this year, but I can see there being a significant opportunity for future years working very closely with DFE to make sure that we're providing those opportunities on a fair basis to all producers. And of course the shows this year, the increased presence of the shows this year, it did highlight one particular issue about around exclusivity contracts and of course everyone will remember the debacle with Gelateri and what happened there and do you think that highlighted any flaws with using those shows as an alternative for this year in particular? I think unquestionably what it does is it shows that where we're using an event that we don't control, there will always be things that potentially cause some challenge around us being able to offer a stall I suppose for one for better word to everyone and I would put on record again absolutely, everything that happened around the event in terms of any sort of contracts was absolutely understandable, absolutely right that those contracts can be in place and they work both ways because for the organizer of the event it means they're guaranteed to have that presence whether it's raining or whatever else, whereas of course we know on a bad day some people may pull out of the deficit and that's entirely their right to do that. So I absolutely put on record that that's the right thing but obviously from our position it presented an interesting challenge, it was one we were aware of through the lease we have actually with the royal show for the land and one that as I say and we've put on record you know I regret that we left the discussions we had too late and of course we put people in positions we just shouldn't have put them in. So the benefit of course of having a show that we put on would be that we wouldn't have that challenge because we wouldn't ever have a situation where we had one supplier who couldn't be there because of the nature of everything that we're aiming to do is around you know a government event it would be absolutely right there would have to be parity. However I do think that there are opportunities to put other events on and we're exploring how those might look maybe in partnership with people maybe sponsoring or supporting other events but having a condition in terms of our sponsorship that actually there isn't those exclusivity but as I say that's not to say that's not the right thing for the royal show or or even the southern show or any other show to do that's absolutely within their gift and I respect fully their right to do that it's just that that's slightly different I suppose if differ or government in the wider context of putting an event on. And considering it's been a few months since the announcement of the fact that there wouldn't be a food and drink festival this year there's not a single producer or manufacturer here locally that I've spoken to who hasn't mentioned it as being disappointing as being something that's going to really really affect their calendar this year and their sales and how they're able to market their product to a local audience and is that the same feedback that you've been getting from the local producers and manufacturers? So we've had quite mixed feedback, interesting and some of that's because there's a number of people who weren't exhibiting at the food and drink festival because it didn't work for them and they're very interested in engaging with us about what could be the alternative that could make sure we pick up some of those points so unquestionably we have had feedback from some producers that absolutely matches that but I would say it has been mixed and it was mixed prior to the cancellation as well because we had had feedback that there was a discomfort amongst the producers that the ticket prices for example were at the level that they were at but from our perspective in order to manage the budget that was the only way we could put the event on so there's a number of different elements I think that play out and the big piece that we're hoping to do and say Claire Christian's going to be leading on this and I'm really delighted that she's offered to support us in that area in the department is working with producers around what the future should look like so taking the budget we have, looking at the opportunities, looking at not just the events that might be put on offer but also how do we protect the products and how do we make sure that you know manks products are verified as manks products so that producers can trade on that you know USP with confidence because actually we've got some brilliant products and it's absolutely right that we want to get those into you know shops, into restaurants, into cafes, into our various establishments around the island and off island and we want to make sure that that provenance is absolutely guaranteed and we've got the labeling we've had feedback about that you know it has its benefit but actually it's not it's not obvious enough people don't always understand the difference between the maiden or product of the Isle of Man so all of that I think is really brilliant feedback and gives us the opportunity to say yeah we've done something we've got partway there but actually we're not where we need to be and who better to work with than a group of local producers who understand this you know if I'm honest you know absolutely the best because they're right at the front end of it so are you confident then that this time next year if we sat down and had a conversation having just had the summer months that you feel like the local producers and manufacturers that we have here will feel better supported by Dether in getting their products out there that's absolutely where I want to be and I think you know it's also drawn to light I suppose for want of a better word that you know we need to make sure our our lists of contact details are updated and verified that there's people who it turns out just haven't been on the communication list so we hadn't been communicating with them regularly and making sure that you know when we're we're contacting people we're making sure we're not just always hearing back from the same people you know I think that's important in any organization but it's it's definitely become I think apparent to me that some people don't communicate into Dether for many reasons actually and that's not a negative about them but it's just we're not hearing some of those voices loudly and I think it's really important we make sure that the platforms we have allow everyone to have input into what we're putting into place because I think as I suppose as I started with actually it's not one size fits all we've got lots of different sizes of business lots of different aspirations some people happy to produce 365 days a year you know some people who actually recognize that for them having a significant period off at a given time is exactly why they've taken the autonomy of running their own business so I think there's a whole host of different situations people are in in terms of the scale of the business the size of the business whether they employ people and what we need to do is we need to find something that works as best as it can for everyone or we need to have a number of smaller events that deliver for different sorts of producers. Thank you for making it to the end of the manxeradian newscast you are obviously someone with exquisite taste may I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of manxeradia podcasts at your favorite podcast provider so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone thank you you (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
