ceda has partnered with this year’s Universal Cookery & Food Festival.

UCFF provides chefs with an opportunity to get out of the kitchen and the day-to-day of cooking and look at, meet and network with the wider industry, including farmers, growers, suppliers, speakers, demonstrators and more.

The ceda Academy has a similar ethos, and its members will be at the event at Mudwalls Farm, Warwickshire on 14th September. Academy members will be encouraged to involve themselves in the day as much as possible and use the chance to engage in the wider catering, hospitality and food industry. The event will be the Academy’s first get-together since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020!

The aim of the ceda Academy is to take members out of their regular role, and immerse them in the wider industry, broadening their knowledge of the sector they serve. In that respect, UCFF is a great fit, providing the Academy with the opportunity to understand the bigger picture of the wider industry in which they work and see how chefs and others in the foodservice supply chain are operating and redeveloping, particularly after the pandemic.

ceda’s Adam Mason is pleased to see a return to live events like UCFF and the opportunities they offer the younger members of the industry. He said, “It’s essential that we engage the next generation as they are the future of our industry and will be the ones to develop and shape the sector in years to come. We must engage them now and allow them to experience the range of operators and end users the catering equipment industry serves. This is especially prevalent as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted and many foodservice businesses get back to some sort of normality. There’s a lot to be learnt in the coming months and years and we hope ceda Academy members will throw themselves into experiences like the Universal Cookery and Food Festival and take what they experience there back to their own roles and use what they have learned to develop themselves and their companies.”

The 2021 UCFF programme offers a varied line up including chef demos and debates, an orchid walk, farmers market, global kitchen stages, foraging and dozens of complementary food stands!

ceda Members get a 10% discount on ticket costs and are encouraged to exhibit at the event.

More information can be found at www.cookeryandfoodfestival.co.uk