A market bursting at the seams with sizzling street food, bustling stalls and a national award to its name has kicked off its food festival season in style.
Shoppers packed into South Molton Pannier Market for its latest food festival, with organisers reporting strong footfall and a full line-up of traders offering a wide variety of produce.
The festival took place on Sunday, February 22, bringing together 56 stalls, including several large food trucks, and attracting visitors from across the region.
Adam Nichols of South Molton Pannier Market said: “The food festival is definitely one of our favourite events, we’ve got four on this year, as you can see, it’s really busy, packed full of stalls, people travel a great distance to come here and the energy is just buzzing today.”
He added: “Today we’ve got 56 stalls booked in, including quite a few big trucks. Every type of food available, something for everyone, there really is.”
Adam said the market had enjoyed a strong start to the year.
“So this year, we’ve already had a fantastic start to the year. Footfall was already flooding in in January and to top it off, winning Britain’s Favourite Market 2026 really is the cherry on the cake,” he said.
“The judges were very impressed by the market. We travelled to NABMA who hosted the awards in Birmingham and were blown away by the amount of votes we got, way more than any other market which is a triumph in itself.
“They also gave us an accolade for our work with the community with young traders and new businesses. To win again for the fourth time it means so much and means we’re getting better and better and better.
“This year, not only did we win a category award, we won the overall top award, we couldn’t be happier.”
Visitors to the festival could see scaffolding in place around parts of the building as restoration work continues.
“As you can see, there is scaffolding around us. Thanks to the National Heritage Project we’re undergoing a large roof restoration and in the next three months we’re going to replace all the glass, any of the rotten roof, stop the leaks coming in and look after the building because we’re really proud of it,” Adam said.
“Whilst this work takes place, please bear with us, please keep coming, it’s minimal disruption, all the stalls are still here, we really want to see us coming in and getting behind us.
“We have loads of events coming up this year, three more food festivals just like this one, we’ve got some surprises coming up in summer we’ve not announced yet, follow us on Facebook and southmoltonpanniermarket.co.uk, all our events are listed there, so much going on, follow us.”
Details of upcoming events can be found at southmoltonpanniermarket.co.uk and on the market’s Facebook page.
