What to do if your struggling town centre has the highest business vacancy rate in England, your historic Market Hall is failing to attract new because of the perceived low quality and poor variety of the food offer, and your town has been listed as the 12th worst place to live in the U.K. by the infamous “Idler Book of Crap Towns”?
The kernal of an idea
For Esther Morrison, as Stockport Borough Council’s Heritage Research Officer, the obvious next step was to repurpose a long vacant unit in the town’s Market Hall into a demonstration kitchen. Esther used the space to promote events on the national food calendar, bringing in branding tie-ins for Great British Beef Week, Mushroom Week etc. She also created recipe books for events such as Valentine’s Day, and where possible, ingredients were purchased on the market and the traders’ names linked to the dishes. This encouraged the traders to cooperate and focused attention on the quality of the food ingredients sold in the market.
And in this way, Stockport’s journey to a town known for its authentic and affordable culinary quality began. By the opening of a demonstration kitchen in the Market Hall along with bet bacon butty and sandwich competitions; the revival of the traditional St Wilfrid’s Fair in the Market Place as part of celebrations to mark the 750th Anniversary of the granting of its Market Charter; and the reinvention of locally-sourced recipes featuring the revival of a Stockport Chesire Cheese and creation of handmade “Tiddlypig” sausages combining locally-butchered pork and ale from a town brewery.
Build-up to the first Foodie Friday
It was a newspaper piece about Manchester Fashion Week that inspired Esther’s next move. She spotted that Scott Power who ran Guerrilla Eats, a co-operative of contemporary street food vendors, was hosting a street party as part of the Fashion Week. When Esther invited Scott to make an exploratory visit to Stockport, he was blown away by the visible history and loved the Market Place as a venue. He agreed to bring the co-operative to Stockport as part of nationally coordinated Love Your Market celebrations and to co-promote the occasion to their dedicated followers.
And so, in May 2013 the first ever Stockport Foodie Friday was held. The event was blessed by a balmy, warm evening, great footfall and a positive ‘continental’ buzz in the Market Place, with live music and lighting, plenty of tables and an air of astonishment. Many of the attendees had never visited Stockport’s Old Town before and had previously only ever seen the town in terms of its modern Merseyway Shopping Centre.
Maintaining the early ethos
Foodie Friday was born, with a founding mission to:
- Introduce Stockport Market to a better quality of food trader and enable them to see the potential customer numbers and demographic that could be attracted.
- Turn-around the negative perceptions of Stockport town centre as an unsafe and unattractive leisure destination.
- Give the employees of town centre businesses a reason to stay-on after 5:30.
- Serve as a vehicle to bring the businesses on Market Place together.
Over the next two years, Esther led Foodie Friday, both as a committed council officer and freelancer, through a period of transition as it built-up its list of traders and customer following. This period saw Guerilla Eats step-away at the end of the first summer, followed by a period of Council curation before becoming hosted by a community enterprise that would steward the event’s evolution over the next decade.
Transition to a lasting approach
Seven Miles Out Arts is a Community Interest Company managed by members of the Barrat family in Stockport. True to Stockport’s tongue-in-cheek way of distinguishing itself from its bigger neighbour, its name refers to the town’s distant from central Manchester. Through father John, mother Rosemary, son Joe and daughter Scarlet, the Barrat family are synonymous with the shaping of a refreshed ‘street culture’ in Stockport through their involvement in markets, events, art and music promotion in the town.
At this point, outdoor traders were charged for a pitch – with nine traders on average taking part. Whilst the introduction of charges had proved controversial to some, the event had started to develop a reputation in the town and traders could rely on modest revenues to be generated.
Growing recognition
Foodie Friday had developed a distinctive reputation and following for its family-friendly focus on food, as opposed to drink. With this new model of management, Seven Miles Out were able to plough all profits back into the running and promotion of the event.
Under the new management model, Foodie Friday won the “Best Event” award at the Manchester Food & Drink Festival 2016, which celebrates the best of food & drink across the Greater Manchester area. The announcement was made following months of judging by leading food critics, visits by mystery shoppers and online voting.
Part of a wider town revival
The new arrangement coincided with Stockport’s selection as a Portas Pilot (with allocated grant funding to support the local economy) and enabled a £10,000 contribution to cover the modest monthly costs of running Foodie Friday.
The evaluation report for Stockport’s Portas Pilot demonstrated how over the five years between 2013 and 2018, the group had overseen a period of transformational change for Stockport Old Town. One of the first decision made by the Portas Pilot group was to establish a defined core area in the town centre where the money would be spent. This area was given the name Stockport Old Town. Through running events and activities which engaged the town’s citizens more directly, Stockport Old Town started to become a thriving and bustling destination for people of all ages to visit.
It was noted in the evaluation that the area’s evening economy had begun to thrive, not only through events like the “ever popular Foodie Friday”, though by cultural events such as the Fringe and Folk Festivals attracting thousands of new visitors, and the creation of an arts centre, Seven Miles Out, which extended the reputation as family-friendly destination offering a wealth of arts, music and cultural engagement. There was a strong sense of how this had started to change the negative perceptions many residents had developed towards the town centre and had begun to restore a sense of pride and belonging.
Changing perceptions of the town
During this time, Stop in Stockport emerged as independent voice with its own, off-beat and self-effacing way that captures and curates the re-imagining of the town. Stop in Stockport’s content across social media platforms is instinctively pitched at the same Millennial and Gen X groups that are key target audiences of Foodie Friday and wider promotion of the town. Stop in Stockport’s key campaign, “Stockport isn’t shit”, is pitched to challenge stereotypical perceptions from other areas of Greater Manchester, and is woven-in to constant, quirky, quietly confident, mildly contentious and humorous messaging that demonstrates why it’s time to move-on from out-of-date images.
When in 2019 the Stockport Town Centre West Strategic Regeneration Framework was launched by the Stockport Borough Council, it set-out a vision that would have been unimaginable in those days before a food-led revival changed people’s appetite for the town. The vision was for the new town centre development to become “Greater Manchester’s newest, greenest and coolest affordable urban neighbourhood”. The vision was backed by the formation of Stockport Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC) to deliver a £1billion investment programme.
Balancing sustainability and success
Through 2018 and 2019, Foodie Friday juggled financial challenges despite its prominence, mainly due to an increase in security stewards following the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017. In addition, the event’s commerciality was restricted by the active choice not to run an ‘event bar’ but instead allow for indoor market traders and surrounding pubs to operate under the terms of a timed premises license. Doing so enabled all of the surrounding pubs and bars to significantly benefit from the event’s footfall. As support from the BID moved towards other events and activities in the town, Seven Miles Out sought contributions of £200 each from these surrounding bars are asked for a contribution per event. This contribution is made by some, but not all, of the bars, including some from outside the Market Place.
When COVID hit, Seven Miles Out maintained the profile and sense of community by fund raising to pay Foodie Friday stall holders to provide free meals for NHS staff. Such was the bounceback post-COVID that in 2022, Foodie Friday again won the “Best Event” award at the Manchester Food & Drink Festival, becoming the only place to be awarded the accolade twice.
Food as part of wider culture
Extending Stockport’s reputation, the town had a great year as Greater Manchester’s Town of Culture for 2023-24, involving more than 50 events over 25 venues; participation by over 600 performers, including over 50 dance, drama and music performances. Foodie Friday was of course a staple throughout.
Building on the Town of Culture year, Stockport seems portrayed as pursuing ‘homegrown’ activities and unorthodox events as recognised in how the Greater Manchester Strategy for Culture, Heritage and Creativity, describes Stockport as “the place that makes itself”.
In March 2024, there was national recognition of changing perceptions about Stockport. The “fabulous” up-and-coming town in Greater Manchester was named as one of the best places to live in the north-west of England. The Sunday Times placed Stockport top of the north-west category in the annual Best Places to Live and described it as “one of the most exciting towns around” and recognised that it was “in the throes of a mighty metamorphosis”. Judges also highlighted the “joyous collection of funky independent businesses” in the town. Reporting on the listing, the BBC commented that Stockport’s resurgence has been led by independent businesses alongside its growing food and drink scene.
A constant over a decade of change
From observations as an objective outside, it is apparent that Stockport and its town centre have been on a journey of transformation in fortunes and image over the last 12 years. One constant that has helped demonstrate the town centre’s potential and set the scene for how it is animated, talked about, experienced, and probably invested in, has been Foodie Friday. People know that on the last Friday of every month, they can come together to socialise, share a constantly changing mix of food and drink created by innovative, independent businesses, and enjoy live music in the setting of the Old Town’s historic Market Place. Foodie Friday makes people have a second take on how they perceive Stockport.
We give the last word here to Joe Barrat, one of the community leaders whose role and influence has evolved alongside his home town over the last dozen years. Joe was just still a teenager, when he launched the Teenage Market in Stockport and has been present with his family members through the evolution of Foodie Friday and its parent Seven Miles Out CIC.
A catalyst for wider work
Speaking recently on BBC North West Tonight programme about the huge impact that Foodie Friday has had on Stockport’s regeneration, Joe explained, “Foodie Friday was the catalyst that led to people from around Stockport, and the wider North West, start to see the town in a different light“.
Joe added that he believes that “Foodie Friday’s wider impact is through what the event has come to represent, and what was missing from the town for many years – a strong sense of pride, community and belonging.”
“Foodie Friday, with its family-friendly feel set amongst the beautiful backdrop of Stockport Old Town, soon started to feed the town’s appetite for this, both literally and figuratively, and, since its initial launch in 2013, has gone from strength to strength in being able to consistently draw footfall into the town – which, in turn, has attracted private investment from businesses of all shapes and sizes, as well as from people wanting to call Stockport their new home.”
Joe recognises that the event is, of course, set alongside a wider programme of investment that has seen the transformation of the town’s Transport Interchange, the creation of new business space and the recent announcement of a new Metrolink tram connection. Bricks and mortar, he feels, will only do so much for a town’s economy and that what’s also needed is a hook that comes to represent both the journey a place has been on and the direction that it’s going in.
Joe adds, “I believe Foodie Friday is that for Stockport – much more than an event, a form of cultural pilgrimage that communities from all over the town, and the wider north-west region, now regularly partake in. It’s what people will point to when asked by strangers at a gig, festival or club why “Stockport isn’t shit?”
For more information
For more details about Foodie Friday, including the date of the next event, visit the Foodie Friday web pages.
Read our guidance on how to write your town or city’s culinary cultural story, that also includes a short pen portait of Stockport.
Our extended blog on “promoting pride in place through progress” tells more about our approach to turning around how people think about their local town or city.
