ROland Hewes was on a student exchange in California in the mid-1990s when he discovered Mexican food. He was so captivated by the “bold, spicy ingredients” that he headed to the Baja California peninsula to learn how to cook with them. Upon his return to London, he graduated with a 2:1 in Law and Politics, accepted a job in sales in London and began frequenting music festivals during the summer months. But he quickly became frustrated with the food he was offered. “It lacked quality, options and affordability,” he said. “It was a far cry from the street food of the Mission District in San Francisco.” Increasingly aware that office life was not for him, he left his job and founded Flaming Cactus the following year, at a time when “people thought guacamole was mushy peas.” It's been 21 years and you can still find Hewes serving tacos to customers at the UK's biggest festivals.
“My business partner Andrej and I insisted that at every event we would use only fresh ingredients delivered directly to our lovingly renovated 60s airstream, and that we would prepare our food from scratch every day and serve it right before the eyes of our clients”. he says. “And this is exactly what we have been doing for more than 20 years.”
The annual summer festival season is officially underway, with veteran rock festival Download taking place in Donington this weekend and Glastonbury the following weekend. The general spirit may be the same as always – hanging out in soggy fields listening to your favorite bands – but thanks to people like Hewes, the food scene has been transformed beyond recognition. In 2022, the independent food stall industry was worth around £1.2 billion and is forecast to grow to £1.6 billion by 2027/28. Forget burgers and noodles – these days there are vendors for almost everything, from sushi burritos to Goan fish curry and Hawaiian poke bowls.
So what's it really like to spend the summer months outdoors, serving up delicious food to the soundtrack of some of Britain's most exciting new bands? From an outside perspective, it seems like a dream job. However, behind the scenes there is a lot of hard work. For one thing, work begins several days before the public doors open: the kitchen is set up, deliveries are picked up, and they undergo health and safety inspections. At Glastonbury, this means showing up the Sunday before and working all week until the following Monday, when the festival closes. Hewes says the job requires “a war mentality.” “You're just pushing through it. They can be very unsociable hours, very hard work. “It is the pressure cooker of the kitchen,” he says. “People always say it must be a lot of fun, but it's a busman's holiday, you're quite far away from [the festival itself]. I travel about 100 miles a day by bike between posts. “It's a physical nightmare and completely unsustainable, but I subject my body to it every year.”
Trying to work while everyone around you is determined to have fun also brings challenges. James Packman, founder of Bacon Sandwich Van Le Swine, remembers sleepless nights working at the Houghton electronic music festival in Norfolk every year. “The music plays 24/7, and you're in the back of the van trying to sleep, and the van shakes with the music. It seems brutal to me. It’s not my kind of festival, but everyone else seems to love it.”
And if dancing in a mud pit is hard work, try cooking in one. Alex Schomberg, owner of Burrito Boys, worked at the Y Not Festival in Derbyshire last year, which was hit by so much rain the ground “turned to marshmallow”. “When it was time to pack, all of our vans got stuck in the mud. We had to carry heavy stainless steel tables about 200 meters to the van; “We fell in the mud and we fell on each other.” Meanwhile, Anna Mae Clark, co-founder of London's first macaroni and cheese seller, Anna Mae's Mac 'n' Cheese, remembers a freak mini tornado that leveled her booth at Secret Garden Party in 2017: “It lasted about a minute, but “It just wreaked havoc.”
Then there's the strange and complicated celebrity encounter. Packman remembers the time Jonathan Ross tried to order something off the menu. He “He approached the truck and tried to order bacon and eggs on a plate because he was trying to eat less bread at that time. I told him you can't come to Le Swine and not have the full bacon sandwich experience. He told me to fuck off but finally gave in to the bun.” Clearly, Packman's buns had won him over: “he came back twice more that day.”
But the toughest pressures of all are financial. Inflation has made it almost impossible for merchants to make a profit in recent years while also charging reasonable prices. “Prices have quintupled compared to when I started 10 years ago,” Packman tells me. “I started out selling a bacon sandwich for about a fiver. Now I can't sell a sandwich for £25.”
It is a very vibrant environment. And at a festival a lot of faith in humanity is restored when you see how well educated people in general are.
Roland Hewes, Flaming Cactus
Schomberg is feeling the pressure from customers asking why the prices are so high: a Schomberg burrito will cost between £11 and £12.50. “Some customers don't understand it. If you don't charge that, you don't make money, since you also have to pay your staff and pay for ingredients, gas and electricity. Sometimes you can walk away and barely win anything. Sometimes you can be busy all weekend and lose money. “It’s a tough business in that sense.”
Another issue is that more and more festival organizers are moving from a flat fee to a percentage model, with some asking for up to 35 percent of the merchant's revenue. “They need to be aware of the percentages they charge,” says Hewes. “I'm not the only one who has turned down events this year on the grounds that the percentages are getting too high for us to sell good quality food. There are many places that try to go beyond 30 percent and then charge you a card handling fee as well. The margins are much narrower and there are more and more bullets to dodge.”
The biggest change in the street food scene over the last decade has been the increase in quality (and paperwork, everyone is quick to tell me). While you'll still find the odd cowboy merchant selling frozen foods, the emphasis on freshness is part of the appeal. Schomberg and his team spend three and a half hours each morning preparing their food, from mashing the guacamole to braising the meat. Clark tells me that all of Anna Mae's Mac 'n' Cheese is cooked to order in a giant cast-iron skillet, with a theatrical mountain of cheese melting in the skillet and into cardboard pots. “We now use truffles as one of our toppings, and we wouldn't have been able to get them when we started. Kimchi is also very good with macaroni and cheese, but no one would have known what it was when we started.” Everyone embraces the variety on offer, not least the rise of gourmet food at boutique festivals like Wilderness and Lost Village, which offer punters the chance to feast on restaurant-quality food in tents filled with community-style tables. “It's nice to have the option of having a cheap burger at 5am, but you can also enjoy a three-course dining experience – it's nice to have that balance,” Packman says.
Once the summer season ends, merchants work through the winter at events like Winter Wonderland, continue with other commitments, or flock to sunnier climes. Schomberg, who will soon turn 50, has just arrived in the UK after spending the winter in Colombia and India. He has five months of solid work and countless festivals ahead of him. “You may have a day off and you may not. We go straight from Glastonbury to the Lytham Festival in Lancashire without a break. You live a pretty nice life in Goa, it's relaxing and you're by the pool, and suddenly you're living in tents, camping outdoors. But you have to love it.”
Certainly, you can only work in the festival food circuit if you are passionate about the work. Schomberg, who is a professional chef, traded restaurant kitchens for festivals 12 years ago, and while driving his truck across the country each summer is no easy feat, it's the lively atmosphere that keeps him coming back. “Once the season starts, we love it. You are dealing with clients and they are in their best place, they are on vacation. And you are part of that. So this is better than working in a restaurant. That's an everyday thing. Once you start serving customers and they are happy, I love it.”
“It's a very vibrant environment. And at a festival you restore a lot of faith in humanity when you see how well-mannered people in general are,” says Hewes. “You have several hundred thousand people in a field and you never see a fight or any problem.”
And it's the returning customers who bring merchants the most joy. “When they come back every year to see you, you recognize them, they give you amazing feedback and they're so happy to see you, that's the best thing,” Clark says. “After a long, cold, gray winter, it's really nice to come back to it and remember why you're out in the country building a kitchen.”
