The second edition of the Port Harcourt International Food Festival (PHIFF) took place on the 14th and 15th of October 2017 at the new Port Harcourt Pleasure Park. The festival was organized by Jorge Lifestyle as a premier showcase for tasty food, lovely drinks and great entertainment. It presents chefs, food and drink vendors the opportunity to celebrate and showcase their products, services and skills and to those seeking culinary adventures as they explore local and international cuisines.
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The event kick started with massive social media publicity. There were several attractive E-posters expressing the love and art of food. There was a gate fee of N500 for an adult and N300 for a child, which is a mandatory fee for entry into the Port Harcourt Pleasure Park.
There is a page for food vendors who are interested in selling at the festival to register. They made available three major categories of food stands, comprising of basic (N25,000), golden (N35,000) and diamond (N50,000).
There was also the opportunity for individuals to register at the cooking master class and free demonstration classes, headed by top chefs in the industry like chef Matse of @matsecooks on Instagram, an award winning food blogger, recipe developer and premium spice maker, with over 48K followers on Instagram; chef Victor Akpojovwo; and chef Punshak Kefas Mark of Maggi Nigeria, a Certified Culinary Nutritionist (CCN) and a Master Certified Food Service Professional (MCFP) with over fifteen years of professional service experience.
Children weren’t left out of the festival as there was the Children Cooking Class headed by Chef Onimim Fifi Karibo of Fifi’s Food House.
The festival started at 12noon on the 14th of October with plenty of food lovers in attendance. There were variety of foods, snacks and drinks from food brands like Just Order, Jumia Food, Kode 9, Big Kitchen, Aliza Juice, Cripsy Slices, Blue Plate etc. The festival was hosted by popular Port Harcourt Comedians David Wilson, Femi-K and the beautiful Anita May Igoni. The weather was sunny and beautiful. The venue buzzed with excitement and the atmosphere was sizzling with breathtaking and mouth watering aroma of the skillfully displayed dishes as pop music flowed softly from loud speakers.
There were musical performances from upcoming Port Harcourt acts like Tchella, Pamela Scott, and Legendary Suni; there was also an eating competition sponsored by Big Kitchen, who also built a burger mountain which they named “Amayanabo” (which means king in Kalabari language).
The festival was a great avenue for food lovers to connect with each other and discover new food brands; it was also an enormous platform for food brands to gain new patrons and showcase their products and services. The Port Harcourt International Food Festival is definitely an event to look forward to in 2018.
