We are Foodfirst and we create cultural experiences and events with food at their core.
Our home base is Sunny ‘Saltburn By The Sea’ where since 2013 we have presented the Saltburn Food Festival
We are a Community Interest Company whose aim is to improve access to culture and locally produced, quality food and drink. We support and inspire those involved, or wanting to be involved, in producing food, drink, and the arts. We create community cohesion and help tackle loneliness and isolation using food as the main ingredient.
Our events and happenings are designed to help support the entrepreneurial spirit. We aim to provide opportunities to both small business and startups involved in the food and arts sectors across the Tees Valley.
We have great pride in where we live, we love the rolling hills and dramatic coastline, our cultural and industrial heritage. We are proud to celebrate this as we develop our events program in the Tees Valley.
We have amazing food producers across The North and our mission is to support and grow this sector whilst adding creative content to the events we produce.
Inspired by a family holiday to the historic French wine region of Bergerac. Sitting on the North bank of the Dordogne, enjoying food and wine and community spirit we realized there wasn’t anything here that we didn’t have at home, it’s just that we weren’t celebrating our culture in the same way! So on our return we set about transforming our seaside town into a great outdoor dining area. Showcasing local producers, distillers, brewers, and makers we have created a festival like no other!
2026 will be our 11th festival. Check back soon for a list of this year’s stall holders, events and more!
Saltburn Farmers Market was established in 2008 and has grown into one of the most successful and well-loved markets in the North. Taking place on the second Saturday of every month, the market is a chance for locals and tourists to shop sustainably for homegrown and homemade produce.
40 stalls cluster around the seaside town’s square and railway station offering a wide range of fresh, locally-sourced produce, including fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, bread, cheese, honey, and preserves.
There are also a variety of artisanal products available, including handmade soaps, candles, and crafts.
The stallholders are farmers, bakers, producers and growers – all happy to chat about their products and offer advice on cooking and preparation. The atmosphere is buzzy, friendly and vibrant – with neighbouring cafes and bars spilling out onto the pavements and square bringing a French market vibe to this North Yorkshire seaside town every month.
Open 9-2pm (although many stalls sell out earlier than this!), our dates for 2026 are:
Saturday 11 April
Saturday 9 May
Saturday 13 June
Saturday 11 July
Saturday 12 September
Saturday 10 October
Saturday14 November
Saturday 12 December
At a time when the country seems more divided than ever on just about everything, Food First Tees Valley are delighted to screen Leaving it Better – a beautiful, inspiring and, above all, hopeful documentary about what happens when a group of environmental campaigners from across North East England meet with a group of farmers from Upper Teesdale in the North Pennines.
The aim of the project was to create a space for dialogue between two groups of people who are not often in conversation with each other, both of whom sometimes feel misrepresented in the media. It offered a place for farmers and campaigners to come together and explore each other’s areas of work and interest.
Commissioned by Tipping Point UK, Defra’s Farming in Protected Landscape Programme, and supported by the North Pennines National Landscape team, over the course of a year the group met on farms in Teesdale to have conversations about the work and campaigns they’re involved in, and consider the impacts of their actions in the landscapes and communities that they live in.
Leaving It Better reflects the common ground the group found through listening to each other and the positive actions they are taking to care for the world around them.
This event is the latest in our series of Good Food Conversations and everyone is very welcome. The evening starts at 7pm with a 50 minute screening in a relaxed setting in Real Meals Deli in Milton Street (bring your own bottle) followed by a discussion with producer Rakesh Prashara. We hope you can join us!
Tickets are £6 plus booking fee
Passionate about plant-based food? Want to make meatless Mondays more of a Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday thing? Looking for tips on how to negotiate Christmas as a vegan? Then you’ll love our plant based Good Food Conversation!
Check back soon for details of stall holders, talks and demos.
Hand-made goods crafted by wonderful North East Creatives. Free Entry. The first 20 customers will receive a goody bag!
FREE ENTRY!
Join Food First Tees Valley for another in our series of Good Food Conversations – a community meal followed by a screening of the thought-provoking and fascinating documentary Six Inches of Soil. A story of courage, vision and hope, the film tells the story of remarkable farmers, communities, small businesses, chefs and entrepreneurs who are leading the way to transform how our food is produced and consumed. If you would like to contribute a dish to our ‘pot luck’ community meal beforehand, please come along for 6.30pm. BYO plate & cutlery! The film will be screened at 7.30pm in an informal cabaret setting in Saltburn Community Hall followed by what we hope will be a Good Food Conversation!
Tickets £6 plus booking fee available here
Passionate about plant-based food? Want to make meatless Mondays more of a Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday thing? Looking for tips on keeping Veganuary going? Then you’ll love the first of our Good Food Conversations!
Taking place in Saltburn Community Hall on Saturday 8 February, join us for a day of plant-based talks, demos, chats and stalls.
Tuck into a range of tasty treats. Our stall holders include: sweet treats from The Tree Rooms, vegan quiche from Happy Sprout, pies and moussaka from Plant, authentic Kashmiri curries from Hidden Jewel Curries, Indian sides from Spise, vegan shwarmas and kebabs from Parallel 7 and organic ginger drinks from Jinger Drinks.
Drop in to our talks and demos – learn about:
No Dig gardening with Karen Greenwood, vegan health with Ruby Ramsay, Beyond Veganuary with founder of North East Animal Rights Anna Malia and growing your own food with Saltburn Allotment Secretary Sue Featherstone.
We’ll also have a vegan Q&A, stalls from South Tees Green Party, North East Animal Rights Pro
🌱Vegan Q&A
Chat to fellow vegans about everything from the best options at local restaurants to what the heck to do with nutritional yeast!
🌱Join our seed swap
🌱 Browse our vegan cookbook library and take a snap of your favourite recipes
We’re charging a small entry fee – just £2 – so that we can fund forthcoming events and we’d love you to join us for us long as you like between 10am and 3pm.
This will kickstart a year of events that will explore good food citizenship – everything from community growing and climate action to food sharing and zero waste alongside food for good health – so be sure to follow us on our socials for all the latest.
What’s not to love about cheese?!
‘Brie’ – lieve it or not – small independent cheesemakers across the North are producing cheese every day using milk produced locally on small farms. Whether your preferred taste is dry and crumbly or creamy and sweet there is a curd for everyone. We aim to share with you…
We are hosting the areas first cheese market where you will find dozens of local cheeses to try, buy and take home. You will find everything you need to accompany your cheese, drinks to pair with your cheese, cheese boards for serving your cheese on and all that go with. Between the 20th and 26th of March cafes, restaurants, and bistros across Saltburn will be creating menus and holding events to celebrate their favourite cheeses and local producers.
Tasting and Pairing events will be held across Teeside with the final action being a Cheese Market held on Saturday 25th/Sunday 26th March.
It all culminates on Sunday 26th March when there will be music, cheesy street food and drinksat Saltburn Band Stand as well as the Cheese Market at the community hall on Windsor Roadand cookery demos in Saltburn Theatre on Albion Street. An exciting day packed full of cheesyseaside fun!”
Join us for an entertaining couple of hours in Saltburn Theatre and watch Sean Wilson bring his latest cook book to life as he cooks his way through the Cheddar Gorged!
Sean has all kinds of culinary leanings but concedes that his “desert island” style of cooking is French, indeed since leaving the Street he has cooked in several Michelin starred restaurants. He is a big Francophile and visits as often as he can. Scouring French food markets is an unashamed passion of his, as is French wine which eventually and inevitably leads you to cheese and mighty fine artisan cheese at that.
