THERE’S still time to enter a new competition for children across the county to design the front cover of this year’s Hampshire Food Festival programme.

The Hampshire Food Festival was named Tourism Event of the Year in the Beautiful South Awards and this year celebrates its 15th anniversary.

This new competition has been launched to mark this special occasion. The theme for the competition with be ‘Food & Farming’.

Tracy Nash, commercial manager, Hampshire Fare, said: “We hope young artists and foodies will be inspired to enter our competition.

“Food and drink is at the heart of communities, and essential to our health, quality of life, and to our local economy and our tourism market.

“We hope to see a variety of subjects and approaches that reflect the nature of the festival itself: a month-long, countywide programme of events that showcases Hampshire’s abundance of food and drink.

“It includes feasts and fun, farms tours and tastings, cookery demonstrations by our best chefs and opportunities to take part in workshops, and much more.”

The competition will be open to all children aged from four up to 16 years old.

The winning picture will feature on the Hampshire Food Festival programme.

The main prize also includes an amazing visit to Marwell Zoo for a family of four (two adults and two children) with dinner, bed and breakfast at Marwell Hotel – a building inspired by the treetops of Africa.

Two runners-up can choose family tickets to a Hampshire Food Festival event of their choice, which includes the New Forest Show.

She, continues: “I suggest those interested in entering the competition take a look at our website hampshirefare.co.uk, which includes a link to a video featuring some of last year’s Hampshire Food Festival events.

“Schools may consider this competition as a catalyst for looking at the amazing variety of produce grown and made in Hampshire including trout, venison, garlic and honey – available from our farmers’ markets, farm shops, village stores and local delis.

“We hope people will feel as excited about this opportunity as we do at Hampshire Fare, and we look forward to seeing the entries.”

  • Create your design on a portrait A4 size paper or card (please note: designs will be scaled down to fit the A5-size programme)

All entries need to be submitted by Friday, March 20, 2015. Unfortunatley entries cannot be returned.

The competition is being run in conjunction with Newsquest Media and all entries need to be sent to:

Hampshire Food Festival Competition, Southern Daily Echo, Newspaper House, Test Lane, Redbridge, Southampton, SO16 9JX.