Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guides to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guides to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
Roland Hughes discovered Mexican food while studying abroad in California in the mid-1990s. Fascinated by Mexican food's “bold, spicy ingredients,” he headed to the Baja California peninsula to learn how to cook with them. Returning to London, he graduated with a second class honours in law and politics, got a sales job in London and frequented music festivals during the summer. But he soon became dissatisfied with the food on offer there. “It lacked quality, choice and affordability,” he says. “It was a far cry from the street food of the Mission District in San Francisco.” Gradually realising that office life was not for him, he quit his job and founded Flaming Cactus the following year. At the time, “I thought guacamole was mushy peas.” 21 years later, Hughes can still be found serving tacos to patrons at Britain's biggest festivals.
“My business partner, Andrei, and I insisted that for each event, food be prepared from scratch and served in front of our guests daily, using only the freshest ingredients delivered directly to our beloved converted 1960s Airstream,” he says, “and that's exactly what we've been doing for over 20 years.”
The annual summer festival season has officially begun, with veteran rock festival Download taking place in Donington this weekend, followed by Glastonbury the weekend after. The general spirit may remain the same: hanging out in dank fields listening to your favourite bands. But thanks to people like Hughes, the food scene has changed beyond recognition. In 2022, the independent food stand industry was worth around £1.2bn, and is predicted to grow to £1.6bn by 2027/28. Forget burgers and noodles: today there are stalls serving pretty much everything, from sushi burritos to Goan fish curry to Hawaiian poke bowls.
So what's it really like spending the summer outdoors, cooking up delicious food while some of the UK's most exciting new bands play? From the outside, it looks like a dream job. But behind the scenes, there's a lot of hard work involved. Work starts days before the gates open to the public, setting up the kitchen, collecting deliveries, carrying out health and safety inspections and so on. At Glastonbury, this means coming in on the Sunday before and working all week until the festival closes on the following Monday. Hughes says the job requires a “war mentality”. “You just hustle. It's very unsociable hours and very hard work. It's like a pressure cooker in the kitchen,” he says. “Everyone says it must be really fun but it's a bit like a bus driver's holiday, quite a break from music. [the festival itself]”I cycle about 100 miles between the stalls every day. It's a physical nightmare and completely unbearable, but I get fitter every year.”
Get the cheese: Anna Mae's macaroni and cheese is cooked to order in a giant cast iron skillet (Provided)
Trying to work when everyone around you is partying can also be challenging. James Packman, founder of bacon sandwich van Le Swine, recalls sleepless nights at Houghton, the annual electronic music festival held in Norfolk. “The music is blaring 24/7 and you're trying to sleep in the back of the van and the van is rocking with the music. I find it harsh. It's not my kind of festival but everyone else seems to love it.”
If dancing in mud is hard, cooking in it is even harder. Alex Schomberg, owner of Burrito Boys, worked at Derbyshire's Y Knot festival last year, when heavy rain hit the festival, turning the ground “like marshmallow”. “When it was time to pack up, our van was totally stuck in the mud. We had to carry the heavy stainless steel tables 200 metres to the van. They were falling in the mud and knocking into each other.” Meanwhile Anna Mae Clarke, co-founder of London's first mac and cheese stall, Anna Mae's Mac & Cheese, remembers a freak mini-tornado that hit her stall at 2017's Secret Garden Party. “It lasted for about a minute but it was total chaos.”
Then there are the odd celebrity encounter. Pacman recalls the time Jonathan Ross tried to order something off the menu: “He approached the van and, as he was trying to avoid eating much bread at the time, tried to order the bacon and eggs on a plate. I told him I couldn't come to Le Swain without enjoying a bacon sandwich. He told me to leave, but eventually gave in to the van.” Clearly Pacman's van had charmed him: “He returned two more times that day.”
But the toughest pressure is economic: Inflation has made it nearly impossible in recent years for merchants to keep prices reasonable and make a profit. “Prices have gone up about five times since I started 10 years ago,” Packman told me. “When I first started, I was selling a bacon sandwich for about £5. Now I can't sell a sandwich for £25.”
It's a very lively environment, and at festivals, seeing how people are generally polite restores your faith in humanity.
Roland Hughes “Burning Cactus”
Schomburg feels pressure from customers asking why his prices are so high – a Schomburg burrito costs between £11 and £12.50. “Some customers just don't get it. If I don't charge that, I won't make any money. I have to pay my staff, I have to pay for ingredients, gas, electricity. Sometimes we barely make any money. Sometimes we're busy all weekend and we're in the red. It's a tough business in that sense.”
Another issue is that festival organisers are moving from a flat fee to a percentage model, with some demanding up to 35 per cent of traders' income. “Organisers need to be careful about the percentages they charge,” says Hughes. “I'm not the only one turning down events this year because the percentage is too high and we can't sell good quality food. There are lots of them charging over 30 per cent, plus card processing fees. The margins are much tighter and there are more problems to work around.”
The biggest change in the street food world over the past decade is the rise in quality (and the rise in paperwork). There are still cowboy traders selling frozen foods, but the emphasis on freshness is part of the appeal. Schomberg and his team spend three and a half hours each morning preparing the food, from mashing the guacamole to braising the beef. Clark says that every dish at Anna Mae's Macaroni & Cheese is cooked to order in giant cast-iron skillets, with dramatic piles of cheese melting into the pan or cardboard pot. “We now use truffles as one of our toppings, but when we started, you wouldn't have had that. Kimchi also goes really well with macaroni & cheese, but when we started, nobody knew what it was.” Every festival emphasizes the diversity of the food on offer. Gourmet dining is thriving, especially at boutique festivals like Wilderness and Lost Village, where patrons have the chance to dine on restaurant-quality cuisine in tents with communal tables. “It's nice to have the option to get a cheap burger at 5 a.m., but also have a three-course dining experience. It's nice to have that balance,” Packman said.
Burrito Boys owner Alex Schomburg is feeling pressure from customers asking why his prices are so high (Courtesy)
Once the summer season is over, traders continue working through the winter at events like Winter Wonderland, either continuing with other jobs or flocking to sunnier climes. Schomberg, who is almost 50, has just arrived in the UK after spending winters in Colombia and India. The next five months are a busy time with festivals coming up. “Some days you get days off, some days you don't. I'm going straight from Glastonbury to Lytham Festival in Lancashire, non-stop. You're living a pretty good life in Goa, relaxing and being by the pool, and suddenly you're sleeping in a tent. But you've got to love it.”
Certainly, you can't work on the festival food circuit without passion for your work. Schomberg, a professional chef, made the move from restaurant kitchens to festivals 12 years ago. Driving a van around the country every summer can be hard work, but the vibrant environment is what draws him back to festivals. “When the season starts, we have so much fun. We're dealing with the customers. They're in a great mood, they're on vacation, and you get to be a part of that. So it's more fun than working in a restaurant. It's an everyday thing. I love serving customers and when they're happy.”
“It's a very vibrant environment, and seeing how generally civil people are at the festival really restores your faith in humanity,” Hughes says. “You see hundreds of thousands of people out on the fields, and you don't see any fights or trouble.”
And it's repeat customers that bring the traders the most joy. “It's fantastic when customers come back year after year and we recognise them, they give us great feedback and they're really happy,” says Clark. “After a long, cold, grey winter, it's really nice to come back there and remember why you're building a kitchen on site.”
