Breakfast with Bristol24/7: Claire Peeters

Claire Peeters is happily chatting to Source co-owner Joe Wheatcroft as I arrive at the appointed hour for our breakfast at St Nick’s.

Already sitting in one of the booths in Source’s cafe are Bristol Old Vic head honchos Tom Morris and Emma Stenning, and we take our seats in the booth closest to the food hall.

Leaning both elbows on the table, Claire laughs ruefully as she contemplates a busy time ahead, which kicks into gear this month with dozens of eclectic events taking place across the city for the Food Connections festival, of which she is chief executive. She also works part-time as head of operations and development for the Sustainable Food Trust, whose global headquarters are in Totterdown.

We both order a sausage sandwich, with toast and jam for my three-year old daughter Lois who is joining us, and when the sandwiches arrive Claire liberally adds ketchup before taking her first bite, washed down by a steaming mug of herbal tea.

Claire lives in Southville and says that she often gets distracted by the food and drink delights in Wapping Wharf while walking into town or back home. She grew up in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire and arrived in Bristol after moving from Nottingham, where she was a food development worker for a community allotment project, cafe and veg box scheme.

Her first home in Bristol was a shared house in Easton and she still tends to allotments in nearby St Werburgh’s with some of her old friends.

Her first ever job was in a McDonald’s; far removed from her current roles. “I got interested in food through having an interest in environmental issues,” she says. “For me, Food Connections is about celebrating food wherever you are and whatever food means to you.”

Claire says that she has chosen to meet in Source because “I know and trust this place, it really does think about where its produce comes from and that is so important to me. And Joe’s a mate!” she adds with a laugh.

While juggling two jobs, no day is typically the same for Claire. She is expecting her first baby in October, and admits that being pregnant meant a couple of “really tricky” months for her, when there was a lot of Food Connections planning to do.

“At that point it felt like a mountain to climb and now we have more than 100 events on the website, people are loving the programme. It’s going to be amazing and i’m really excited.”

One of Claire’s first jobs since joining the Food Connections team last September was looking at what had and hadn’t worked at the festival in previous years. The festival now has much more of a citywide focus because of this.

“I knew Food Connections as everybody else did,” Claire admits. “I spent much more of that time in a city centre location than I did going to any of the fringe events. Through discussions, the only route for us was to allow Bristol to do its thing and for us to facilitate that. Over time that will build into a festival that you could take anywhere in the country. It will be amazing and people will love it but it will go away at the end of the week and that will be that.

“But that doesn’t really say ‘Bristol’, and Bristol has so much to offer from a food perspective, a cultural and creative perspective and a maverick approach. We needed to let Bristol shine and this led us to something that is unique in the country and hopefully in the world.”

As Claire comes to the end of her sausage sandwich, her enthusiasm is spreading in the same way as the jam over my three-year old’s face as she sits at the table next to us. Food Connections is set to be a highlight of Bristol’s year and with Claire in charge it is in very safe hands.

Source Food Hall & Cafe
1-3 Exchange Avenue,
Bristol,
BS1 1JW
0117 927 2998
www.source-food.co.uk

Toast & jam: £1.80
Cortado: £2.25
Sausage sandwiches x 2: £9.50
Mug of tea: £1.75
Total: £15.30

Illustration by Anna Higgie – www.annahiggie.co.uk

Read more: ‘The power of food in connecting communities’