A CHEF will use a fledgling food festival in Nelson as a platform to campaign against food waste.

Culinary activist Gill Watson may have cooked for some of the world’s super-rich, including former 007 Pierce Brosnan, but she will be returning to her Pendle roots on Saturday, September 19, for the inaugural Nelson Food & Drink Festival.

Author of Eating My Words, she is a past master at separating her former life with the elite from her current mission to redistribute surplus but edible food to society’s needy.

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Her appearance at the festival will see her return to a cause for which she has become renowned in recent months. Not only has she been actively involved in delivering fruit and vegetables through FareShare, a healthy-food redistribution initiative, but she went on to hand out surplus food-bank fare to deserving cases.

Last year she also launched the Pendle Helping Hands cookery school, to promote cheap and cheerful meals, and lobbied Lidl so leftover produce from its Burnley store can be handed out to impoverished families.

A Nelson Food & Drink Festival spokesman said: “Gill’s work around food poverty and food waste was featured on BBC television’s Inside Out programme this year.

“And she has recently cooked with The Real Junk Food Project Manchester for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s new series on waste food.”

The festival seminar will also feature environmental artist Kerry Morrison, as Gill describes how she has taken her message into schools and community groups across Nelson, Colne and West Craven.

Live cookery demonstrations, headed by beer chef Richard Fox, who recently went down a storm at the Accrington Food Festival, are another key ingredient for the all-dayer.

The catering department at Nelson & Colne College, the Spice of India restaurant and Oddies Bakery in Nelson are also supporting the festival, which is part of Nelson’s Portas Town revival efforts.

A worldwide food market is planned alongside traditional Lancashire favourites, with dance displays from the Punjabi Roots Academy.

Other attractions on the day will include a children’s cake-decorating competition, free face painting and henna art.