Bridport Food Festival chairman Amanda Streatfeild is to retire next year.

Mrs Streatfeild will step down after the 12th festival.

Under her stewardship and with a committed steering committee the festival has gone from strength to strength – and now has a healthy bank balance of more than £17,500.

Mrs Streatfeild paid tribute to her team for the festival’s success.

She told the group at its annual general meeting: “The festival is a real co-operative event, and all those on our steering group have contributed enormously to making the whole thing work.

“Particular thanks to Linda Pyke [pictured far right], our administrator, who has run the whole show for three years.

“This is Linda’s last year and she will be hugely missed.” She also thanked the event’s sponsors who contribute more than £4,300 annually.

That money, and other income that amounts to more than £25,500, enables the gate price to be kept low and gives a buffer in case there was ever such bad weather the event had to be cancelled.

Mrs Streatfeild said the festival began with grant funding from Chalk and Cheese but was now not only self-sufficient but could give donations to other projects, like school farm visits.

She said: “We have a fund which we can offer to local schools to visit farms for school projects.

“Several schools have visited Washingpool Farm and if they have to get transport, we can make a small grant.

“This is what we feel the Bridport Local Food group is all about. There are great projects around the area, and my vision would be to try and link these together more so that we can work effectively as possible to improve awareness of good, locally-produced food, and the best and most cost-effective ways of using it.”

As evidence of how highly-valued the food industry is in Bridport Mrs Streatfeild cited the 300 plus nominations for the group’s new front-of-house Food Service Awards.

She said: “A lot of businesses get awards for the wonderful things they produce but we felt it would be really nice to recognise those people who were there day-in and day-out meeting with the customers.

“They are actually the people who make the difference to businesses. You can have the most wonderful produce in the world but if you can’t sell it or serve it then it is not going to be appreciated.

“We did have more than 300 nominations, which for our first year I think is very impressive and it shows that people do value our food businesses.