Horsham town centre was buzzing with excitement on Sunday 7 September as hundreds of visitors gathered to celebrate the very best of Sussex food and drink at the Sussex Six Market. The event featured a vibrant mix of local producers, street food vendors, live music, and a star-studded Sussex Super Chef Live Cookery Theatre curated by the fantastic local food guru, Hilary Knight.
Top award-winning Sussex chefs, wowed the crowds cooking their sig-nature dishes live using locally sourced Sussex produce, they included:
- Miranda Gore-Browne of Parham House Cookery School
- Joshua Mann from Camellia at South Lodge
- Matt Gillan of The Woodcote in Graffham
- Alex Dome from Knepp Wilding Kitchen
- Jordan Sarvar from TERRA at Tottington Manor
- Kenny Tutt from the BBQ School at The Artisan Bakehouse.
And if this wasn’t enough, the Cooking Theatre was closed by Michael Yeoman from Spirit of the Downs mixing up some very special cocktails with a Sussex spin. Visitors indulged in a mouth watering array of Sussex-made treats, from artisan sauces and jams to craft beverages and sweet delights from a broad range of Sussex food and drink producers.
Traders included: Fruitology, Cocoa Loco, Boom Sauce, Spirit of the Downs, Cabin Pressure Spirits, Horsham Green-grocers’ Garden to Jar, In the Loop and Holy Smoke-house, amongst others. Horsham Matters were present as the event’s adopted charity to explain their role as the foundation of Horsham’s Local Food Partnership and involvement in the formation of a Food Plan for Sussex.
There was fun for all the family with interactive musical performances on the Carfax band-stand led by the Little Notes’ fruit and veg band and the moo-vellous ‘Jersey Girls’ street entertainers by Dan the Hat, who happily posed for pictures with visitors and traders alike that just couldn’t get enough of their cow based comedy.
The Sussex Six Market food event ran from 10am until 4pm and was organised by Horsham District Council and Food Rocks in support of the Sussex Six Campaign, managed by Natural Partnerships, which aims to increase the avail-ability of local produce on menus and shop shelves in the county.
Cllr Jonathan Taylor, Horsham District Council’s Cabinet Member for Enterprise and Property said: “We are delighted at the success of this event which was a great celebration of Sussex produce and our Sussex Six campaign.
We were pleased to see so many people come along to ‘Buy Local’ and support local food and drink businesses whilst enjoying all of the entertainment on offer.
“Our Sussex Six campaign is growing fantastically as an initiative to increase the avail-ability of local produce in Sussex. Thank you to everyone who came along to celebrate with us!”
The festivities extended across the weekend with the Horsham Tap & Vine Takeover, organised by Fire-bird Brewery, Your Horsham and Visit Horsham. Some thirteen pubs and venues throughout Horsham show-cased locally brewed beers, ciders and wines from breweries and vine-yards in the Horsham District giving visitors even more ways to savour Sussex.
Visit The Sussex Food and Drink website to find out more and discover the best local Sussex food and drink.
The Sussex Six Campaign is part-funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.