At the launch from left Marty Kerr, Visa Country Manager New Zealand, South Pacific; Sarah Meikle, VWOAP Festival Director; Terri Cumiskey, Visa Director of Marketing.
Wellington’s annual winter food festival, Visa Wellington on a Plate (VWOAP), is outgrowing itself and looking to expand onto the international stage. Already, this year’s just launched programme features a new international component, the Chef Collaboration Series, bringing several international name chefs to the August festivities. Industry leaders speaking at the launch spoke of Wellington’s reputation as a foodie city, and the need for VWOAP to look further afield.
Food tourism was increasingly important to New Zealand and Wellington is becoming the destination to come to for food, said Tourism Minister, Paula Bennett. ‘In Wellington food and beverage accounts for 28% of international visitor spend, compared with 23% nationwide.’
Fran Wilde, chair of Wellington Culinary Events Trust Board, which runs VWOAP, said the annual festival has grown as much as it can in its present form. ‘You are going to see an incremental change to get international tourists come here in August. They are not going to just go on a ski holiday in the South Island. We will need to work with our partners (to achieve this) and we are looking forward to discussions with Tourism New Zealand,’ she added.
Speaking on behalf of Visa, the Festival’s major sponsor, country manager New Zealand South Pacific, Marty Kerr, said that putting VWOAP on the international stage was the big challenge for next year. He also made a pledge, in relation to his company’s eight year sponsorship of the event, that ‘Visa is not going anywhere’.
Festival director, Sarah Meikle, announced the big events, innovations and excitement packaged into this year’s programme, which will run from 11 to 27 August.
Chef Ben Shewry.
The new Chef Collaboration Series presents an opportunity to showcase international cuisine, she said. Headline acts will include Kiwi-born chef Ben Shewry, whose Melbourne restaurant Attica is included in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Shewry is returning to his roots to create a degustation long lunch with local chef, mentor and trainer, Mark Limmacher. Also coming will be the team from Melbourne’s Cumulous Inc, taking over Egmont St. Eatery, and renowned Shanghai casual eatery star, Jenny Gao, booked to present a ‘Sichuan Soul Food Fest’.
Other perennial favourites are returning, with innovative twists. In the festival foundation event, Dine Wellington, 120 restaurants and 20 food trucks will this year offer up a ‘Festival Dish’. Tickets to the Martin Bosley-led ‘Prison Gate to Plate’ events at Rimutaka Prison, which in previous years have sold out within minutes, will this year be allocated via ballot. Burger Wellington will encompass a record 123 burgers, matched with craft beers brewed especially by Garage Project. Beervana, the craft beer showpiece, will return this year with a difference, as in via a road trip throughout the North Island that will ‘pick up’ breweries en route to Wellington. As well; pop up fiestas, ‘Cocktail Wellington’ with the city’s top ‘mixologists, the Festival’s first ever ‘ConversatioNZ Symposium’, and more than 100 food focused events will take place in the city and around the greater Wellington region.
