Real taste of fresh food

For those who appreciate good food, the Real Food Festival at Earls Court is one to visit. With 500 stands, this is being hailed as the largest farmers market ever; bringing unusual produce to the Capital.

The line-up will include ingredients and drinks from small producers as well as some bigger players like Whole Foods.

Visitors who want to learn more can partake in educational workshops, where they will be given an insight into international food and drink types. Food guru, Barny Houghton from Bordeaux Quay will be running a Cookery School where you can learn to make the simplest things like a loaf of bread.

A debate chaired by award winning journalist Richard Johnson – Is cheap food costing the earth? – will be held at 5.30pm on Thursday. The panel will include Trudie Styler and Zac Goldsmith but seats are available on a first come, first served basis so it is worth arriving early. You can register questions for the debate on www.realfoodfestival.co.uk

The idea is that you get a rounded culinary experience. You meet the people that planted the carrots, milked the cows and crushed the grapes, taste their produce, learn about it, then buy it to take home.

Stories behind the stalls

The Veggie Table: Anna and Adam Robertson have a combined 20 years in Borough Market. They have worked for all sorts of producers but more recently decided it was time for them to have one of their own, so was born The Veggie Table. Veggie burgers are made using fresh, local produce, rather than soya.

The Giggly Pig Co: Tracy Mackness was sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug offences and had previously attempted suicide twice. Doing time allowed her to get her life back together again – Tracy was eventually given a place in an open prison and a job looking after the prison farm's rare breed saddleback pigs. She also took a course in pig husbandry, along with sausage making and butchery. The business she started after her release, The Giggly Pig Company, was soon a hit. Tracy started with 30 Saddlebacks which friends allowed her to put on their land. Today Giggly Pig has 12 employees, four vans and 250 pigs. She says her prison experience saved her life.

Mini Magoo: From makeup artist to organic entrepreneur - not a logical career progression, but it worked for Maria Luigi. She began by making flavoured popcorn for her goddaughter (nicknamed Mini Magoo) and then progressed to bags of muesli for her Notting Hillbilly friends, who encouraged her to go into production. Maria hung up her brushes and began mixing breakfast cereals in her kitchen, packing the mueslis into brown paper bags. They are now sold in various farm shops and will soon be on the Fortnum & Mason shelves.