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Bloom Festival
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Record Numbers at this year’s Bloom Festival

Over a glorious bank holiday weekend nearly 115,000 people attended Bord Bia’s Bloom festival in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

Ireland’s largest horticultural, craft and food festival was celebrating its tenth year and gardening enthusiasts were out in force to enjoy the sunshine.

Aidan Cotter, Chief Executive of Bord Bia commented, “It is clear that Bloom has become an important fixture in Ireland’s summer calendar, with visitors enjoying the very best of Ireland’s food and horticulture industry. Since our first Bloom event in 2007, the festival has doubled in size. We’ve welcomed over 800,000 people to the show, showcased over 280 show gardens and hosted thousands of Irish food and drink producers. Over the years, the show has evolved and all of us in Bord Bia are truly proud of our Bloom show and what it represents today. It provides us with an invaluable platform to highlight the creativity and passion that characterises our world-class horticulture and food industry.”

Bloom 2016 by Numbers

1. A total of 4,000 people worked onsite over the 5 days including 200 volunteers
2. It will take 14 days to clear the Bloom site (it took 31 days to build Bloom)
3. Some 123 Bloom medals and awards were presented to garden designers, nurseries, floral artists, botanical artists and exhibitors
4. This year’s show featured 23 exquisite show gardens
5. Over 46,000 ice-creams and 40,000 bottles of water were enjoyed in the sunshine over the festival
6. 5,685 visitors left plants in the Viking Plant Crèche to be cared for while they enjoyed the festival
7. 16,340 people experienced Bord Bia’s new Origin Green sustainability feature and learned what the Irish food and food producers are doing to protect the environment
8. Mr. Jeffares Blackcurrants from Wexford, who won ‘Best Stand’ within the Bord Bia Food Village, sampled over 10,000 Vitamin C shots!
9. Brady Family Ham sold 1lb of ham a minute over the five days
10. 2,260 children potted plants in the Budding Bloomers Kids’ Area
11. Banter at Bloom and GIY Food Matters Stage hosted a combined total of 47 debates, workshops and discussions on a wide variety of topics from food and farming to sustainability and seasonal growing.
12. Over 21,000 people availed of Bord Bia’s free Shuttle Bus to and from Bloom each day
13. Over 200 food buyers attended Bord Bia’s business breakfast at Bloom on Friday morning for meetings with the exhibiting food and drink companies.

With a record breaking attendance this year, it is no surprise that exhibitors enjoyed a weekend of great sales with many reporting doubling their business on last year. Many of the producers in the food village sold out daily and some were seen making several trips to their production facilities to restock.

Based on this year’s success, planning is already underway for Bloom 2017 which will take place from Thursday, June 1st to Monday 5th.

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