Pumpkin festival comes to Durrington

There will be pumpkin workshops, pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie and recipe cards with different ways of cooking and eating pumpkins on will be handed out.

Halloween is the UK’s second largest retail festival after Christmas and, as it continues to grow, habits from the US, including the cooking and eating of pumpkins, are being increasingly adopted.

To help rescue the vast quantity of jack-o’-lanterns going to landfill, 20 Pumpkin Rescue festivals have sprung up across the UK – offering innovative ways to re-use pumpkins and cut down on food waste.

On the back of the success of a pilot festival in Oxford last year, environmental charity Hubbub produced a ‘how to’ pumpkin festival guide and invited local communities across the country to take on the challenge by holding their own festival. The guide takes communities from the germination of the idea through to how to make a festival work logistically alongside what makes it fun and successful.

An estimated 18,000 tonnes of pumpkin is sent to landfill sites in the UK each Halloween – that’s the same weight as 1,500 double decker buses.

However, food waste from households is falling, and the uptake of pumpkin festivals this year shows people in the UK are increasingly receptive to this message. According to Government figures annual UK household food and drink waste fell by 13 per cent over a three year period.