VIDEO: Mouthwatering bouquets star of the show at food fair

With a massive menu on offer, more than 5,000 people passed through Cork City Hall yesterday for the Cork/Kerry Food Forum with some of the region’s artisan food producers sharing their culinary delights.

Among the exhibitors was Denisa Slasdanova, who recently set up her own edible fruit flower bouquet company in Ballincollig.

Denisa was visiting the US when she first spotted the fruit flower bouquet. She decided to start a similar business in Cork under the name Incredible Flowers.

“It is going well,” she said. “I am getting orders for weddings over the summer time. People think it is a very novel idea. There is nobody else doing it. I got in to it because I am interested in healthy foods having a three- year-old myself. I work when my son is in the crèche.”

Food fans having a busy day at the Cork & Kerry Food Forum at City

Hall, Cork, yesterday. Pictures: Larry Cummins

Former newspaper executive with the Sunday Tribune Shanna Wilkie was displaying her organic single origin Wilkie Bars at the forum.

“I was making chocolate at home as a hobby and researching it as a hobby and then in 2011 the company I was working for closed down so I decided to develop it as business idea,” she said. “I am stocked in the English Market in Cork and Bradleys Off Licence.

“We are getting great feedback — I use criollo bean. Trying to bring the natural flavours through is what I am interested in doing. I am working from a unit in Midleton, Co Cork.”

The one-day event also included cookery demonstrations from chefs Kevin Dundon and Patricia Flaherty.

Caroline Murphy of West Cork Eggs ropes in daughter Kaitlin to help

at the Cork & Kerry Food Forum.

Among the exhibitors taking part in the forum were: Clonakilty Chocolate; Yawl Bay Seafoods; Mellas Fudge; Ballyhoura Apple Juice; Milsean chocolate; Martinis Delicious Seafood Meals; Wildberry Bakery; West Cork Handmade Pies; and De Roiste puddings.

The aim of the event was to promote Cork and Kerry food and artisan producers, by a partnership including the local enterprise offices Cork and Kerry, Cork City Council, Cork County Council, SuperValu and Bord Bia.

In 2014, to help develop Ireland’s artisan and food industry further, SuperValu, Bord Bia, and the local enterprise offices across the country, joined forces to create the Food Academy.

The Food Academy model facilitates the promotion of the entrepreneurs to consumers while equipping the new food companies to be consumer-focused from the outset and to expand.