The Great Kent Chilli Festival will be held on the last weekend June/ first weekend in July 2018 and we are hosting a great weekend for chilli enthusiasts, food lovers and families. Held at Hole Park, Rolvenden, near Cranbrook, TN17 4JA, we’ll line up a hot weekend of chillies, with stalls selling chilli sauces, chilli jams and chutneys, and chilli plants. Plus we’ll have cooking demonstrations; talks on growing chillies; artisan food producers; music; international street food; a chilli cook-off and of course chilli-eating competitions.
Chilli cook-off
We’ll have the chilli-con-carne cook-off, run by the UK Chilli Cook-off Association, open to pre-registered teams to battle it out for the Kent title and a place at the national finals. The contestants have 4 hours to cook a gallon of chilli-con-carne from scratch, which is then put before a panel of judges and a public vote. The winning team goes on to cook in the UK Finals. The UK winner at the end of the summer qualifies to compete in the World Food Championships in Alabama!
Chilli eating competition
We’ve got a chilli eating competition at 4pm on both days for the brave. Ten rounds of increasingly hot chillies for the competitors and plenty of hilarity for the spectators.
Chilli hot sauce competition
The public get a chance to judge our chilli sauce competition! The stall holders will be invited to enter their sauces for a blind tasting test by festival visitors.
The venue
The Great Kent Chilli Festival will be held at the well-known Hole Park near Cranbrook. The stunning gardens were voted Visit Kent’s Garden of the Year in 2016, and entry to the 16 acre garden is included in the chilli festival ticket.
This will be a great day out for chilli enthusiasts, food lovers and families. So if you enjoy the sensation of steam coming out of your ears then this is the Chilli Festival for you!.
This is a food festival, not a music festival, but we’ll have live music all day to listen to whilst sipping a local pint of ale or cider to calm the tingling taste buds.
The Chilli Festival is on Saturday June 30 and Sunday July 1 2018, from 10am until 5pm. Parking is free and tickets are available in advance or on the gate.
Photo: Rob House