After careful consideration and numerous conversations with key stakeholders, we’ve made the decision to not host the Eat Great Food Festival in 2022. The Eat Great brand was created to help enrich the Great Lakes Bay Region restaurants and other culinary brands by building community, highlighting local talent, and providing a platform for local purveyors, restaurateurs, and chefs to tell their stories and grow their initiatives. Currently, our partners in the region are still up against depleted staff numbers, extraordinarily high food costs, and minimized hours of operation. We believe a food festival of this size and scope out tax and already stressed food and beverage sector in our Region, which runs countercurrent to the mission of the Eat Great brand.
With these factors in mind, the Eat Great team will be working with and in local restaurants to bring fun programs to the Great Lakes Bay Region throughout the remainder of the year. At this time, we are planning to host Eat Great Winter in Saginaw sometime in February 2023.
Looking ahead, we have a unique opportunity to reevaluate and reposition the brand to ensure we still best align with our vision and mission. In 2023 and beyond, we hope to bring programs to the region which strengthen relationships amongst restaurants, increase brand awareness and connectivity to the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, and cultivate new unique culinary experiences in the community. Plans are currently underway for some fun Eat Great activations taking place over the next few months.
