Food & Wine News South Africa

The Plant Powered Show to take place in Cape Town in May

This year the Plant Powered Show will take place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) from Friday, 27 May, to Sunday, 29 May.

It will incorporate a not-to-be-missed three-day live in-person event as well as an exciting virtual component, which will allow visitors from other provinces and around the globe to attend online.

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Image supplied

The live show has been curated to ensure a great experience for attendees within the parameters of the relevant government Covid-19 guidelines.

What is the Plant Powered Show?

The Plant Powered Show is the first of its kind in South Africa, bringing the plant-based, vegetarian, vegan and conscious living revolution to a mainstream audience.

The hugely successful inaugural Plant Powered Show (under the name The Festive Vegan & Plant Powered Show) took place online in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions and featured an extraordinary line-up of local and international chefs.

Aimed at those looking to live and enjoy a healthier, more conscious and sustainable lifestyle with a smaller environmental footprint, The Plant Powered Show features professional chefs, celebrity cooks and rising stars presenting live cooking demos, diverse and compelling talks by the health and wellness experts, premium and interactive experiences, exclusive industry networking and a marketplace of plant-based food, drink and lifestyle products.

Hybrid format will be a potent combination

Event producer, Heidi Warricker, says: "We are delighted to finally be able to launch The Plant Powered Show as a live in-person event in Cape Town but also pleased that it will retain the online component. We believe that this ‘hybrid’ format will be a potent combination.

Consumers want to live more consciously and be more mindful of the animals we share the planet with. At the same time, chefs and foodies want to be inspired to create delicious meals with exciting new ingredients.
“After a postponement due to the pandemic, we are starting live this year in Cape Town,” says event producer, Heidi Warricker.

New consultant and FoodForward SA partnership

Also joining the team as a consultant is Emma-Claire Peter who started off her culinary career in food styling, recipe development and writing before working as a restaurant and chefs' theatre coordinator for Tastee festivals and then moving into food retail, working in Selfridges and Sourced Market in London.

Peter, a trained chef, most recently produced Plant Forward Kitchen for Google Foods in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America, an experience that led to her adopting a vegan lifestyle.

The Plant Powered Show has also announced FoodForward SA as its official CSI partner. FoodForward SA is the largest food redistribution organisation in South Africa.

Established in 2009 to address widespread hunger in the country, FoodForward SA connects a world of excess to a world of need by recovering quality edible surplus food from the consumer goods supply chain and distributing it to community organisations that serve the poor.

The partnership explained

Warricker explains why The Plant Powered Show selected FoodForward SA to be their official CSI Partner:

“One-third of all food produced in South Africa is dumped in landfills, while millions of people are going hungry in our country, on a daily basis. As consumers we can’t only focus on what we eat and where our food comes from, we also need to look at food insecurity and what we can do to help alleviate this problem.”

The plant-based food revolution is a fast-growing industry and an exciting space for new and emerging businesses and startups.

Sponsors

Sponsors to date include Food Forward SA, SA Vegan Society, WWF SA, Beauty Without Cruelty and Tourism Cape Town. Sponsors of The Plant Kitchen Chef’s Theatre are AGT Foods, Alpro, B-well Foods, Denny Mushrooms, SA Chefs Association, International Hotel School, Van Loveren Wines, SA Avo Growers Association and in The Plant Power Health & Wellness Talks, ProVeg South Africa, Wellness Warehouse.

Times and dates

  • Friday, 27 May, 2022, from 10am to 8pm
  • Saturday, 28 May, 2022, from 10am to 8pm
  • Sunday, 29 May, 2022, from 10am to 5pm

Tickets, which cost R120 online and R250 at the door, go on sale on March 1 on Quicket.

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