Foodie Friday in Stockport

PAPRIKA are responsible for the creation and growth of https://skfoodiefriday.co.uk/ Foodie Friday in Stockport. From its launch in May 2013 as part of the first Love Your Local Market event, it has grown in terms of crowds, traders, stakeholders and reputation, to become Greater Manchester’s Best Food and Drink Popup in the 2016 Manchester Food and Drink Awards and to be shortlisted in 2018 and 2019.

The Place Making concept behind the event was threefold.

• To give Stockport Town Centre workers a reason not to leave Stockport as soon as they finished work.
• To remind people that Stockport Market is a market town and that its market is still functioning.
• To change the negative perception (and to an extent, the reality) that Stockport Town Centre was neither an attractive nor safe leisure choice.

Esther believed that a street food event, if sufficient time were given to allow it to become established, would be the ideal vehicle to bring about this transformation. It was!

The local community and surrounding businesses took the event to their heart and stuck with it long enough for it to become sustainable.  It is now widely cited by the local authority, surrounding authorities and media as the catalyst for several grass-roots changes in the viability of niche food businesses in the town but also, for changing the perception that Stockport is a black hole for entrepreneurship and innovation.

In 2016, the Foodie Friday team achieved peer recognition for both Foodie Friday and Stockport's emerging food culture, by winning Best Food and Drink Popup in Greater Manchester at the Manchester Food and Drink Awards.

With the help of PAPRIKA the delivery model is now being widely copied across Greater Manchester.

Markets as far away as Islington have admitted to being inspired by Foodie Friday when creating their own evening events!