Despite being the autumn iteration of Canberra food festival The Forage, visitors were treated to some summer weather as the sun beat down on the carpark next to Little National.
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Organisers estimated more than 8000 people packed into the Barton venue to sample some of Canberra and the region's best produce.
The Forage is held three times per year (autumn, winter and spring) and is the brainchild of small businesswoman Belinda Neame.
Coming from a background in small business and hospitality Ms Neame knew the difficulties of getting your name out there without costly advertising so she began The Forage as a platform for local vendors.
Ms Neame said the festivals allow for local businesses to serve directly to a "foodie audience" that can hopefully generate follow on traffic after the event.
"I just want to show off our city, what we have to offer and how great it is," Ms Neame said.
"I was sick of always being compared to Sydney or Melbourne, we have our own culture so let's show it off."
Ms Neame said they have received calls to take the event, which essentially operates at capacity currently, and make it bigger but she has decided to stick to the format that works.
"If we go somewhere else and get bigger we won't be us anymore," she said.
"We want to be able to keep that close relationship our stall holders can have with customers."
One stallholder who benefited from the engagement The Forage offers was Fungi Co founder Peter Wenzel.
"It's just a great opportunity to get in front of a whole bunch of people that aren't familiar with mushrooms and the science behind them," Mr Wenzel said.
"We want everyone to learn about the wonder of mushrooms."
While the company sold plenty of familiar mushrooms people could take home to cook, Fungi Co provided all sorts of exotic mushrooms you can't find in stores.
They also educated people on the application of mushrooms in medical science and introduced them to new techniques of growing mushrooms.
The Forage will continue highlighting local businesses at its winter event on July 7.
