July 30, 2013
The South Burnett put on a strong showing at Regional Flavours 2013, Brisbane’s signature annual food and lifestyle event which was held at South Bank recently.
This year the region was represented by the South Burnett Regional Council, Crane Wines, Bellbird Vineyards, Clovely Estate, Kingaroy Cheese, Kingaroy Kitchen, The Peanut Van and Bunya Red Farm Capers, who displayed the best of the region’s wines and foods to the estimated 40,000 people who flocked to the event on July 20-21.
Apart from promoting the region’s produce, the SBRC also used the event to promote tourism.
Over the course of the weekend, Council officers handed out hundreds of tourism brochures.
They also ran two competitions for two-night holidays at Yallakool Tourist Park which drew hundreds of entries.
SBRC Economic Development Officer Kimberley Dove said this year the region had enough stands to form its own cul-de-sac.
“This helped the South Burnett make a big impact,” she said.
“There were about 100 exhibitors at Regional Flavours and we took up about 7 or 8 per cent of the display space.
“This drew a lot of attention and one of our exhibitors even picked up a distributor for their products, which was just fantastic.”
South Burnett Mayor Wayne Kratzmann also attended the event on Sunday afternoon, manning the Council’s stand to talk up the region in person.
“It was excellent … absolutely fantastic,” he said.
“Brisbane is a prime tourist market for us and two of our big strengths are great foods and wines.
“Regional Flavours gives us the opportunity to present these directly to people who like both these things. So in terms of value for money, I think this was one of the best things we could have done to promote our area.”
Regular exhibitor Bernie Cooper, from Crane Wines, was equally enthusiastic.
“We’ve always thought Regional Flavours was a great event to showcase the South Burnett and this year was probably the best we’ve had,” he said.
“We wrote a lot of business on the weekend and expect more to flow from it in the months ahead.”
SBRC CEO Ken McLoughlin and Economic Development Manager Phil Harding also attended during the course of the weekend to assess the event and how the region could leverage its presence in the future.
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[Photos: SBRC and Regional Flavours]
