Maleny to host Sunshine Coast Real Food Festival

For a small town, Maleny has decent food kudos, boasting a dairy, an artisan cheesemaker, award-winning ice-cream, a two-hatted restaurant and more.

This weekend the Sunshine Coast hinterland town hosts the Sunshine Coast Real Food Festival. It's the fourth year of the festival, dreamed up and organised by Julie Shelton, a local food advocate.

"The Real Food Festival is a showcase for Sunshine Coast food producers that allows them to connect directly with consumers from the local area as well as visitors," Shelton says.

"The event captures the hearts of producers and consumers and celebrates real food, which to me is food that is good, clean and fair.

"In other words food that makes you feel good when you're eating it.

"It gives people the chance to see, smell, touch and taste foods they may not have tried before, and hear from experts about growing, producing and cooking great food."

The program, which runs across Saturday and Sunday, will feature cooking demonstrations from chefs such as Christine Manfield (ex-Universal, Melbourne) Alejandro Cancino (Urbane, Brisbane) and Cameron Mathews from Spicer's Long Apron as well as celebs such as Costa Georgiadis and Dan and Steph Mulerhon from My Kitchen Rules.

There are also a host of different talks and panel sessions on everything from creating a micro-garden to cheesemaking at home as well as more than 120 stalls showcasing local food.

Shelton says they're expecting around 10,000 people across the weekend.

The Real Food Festival is being held at the Maleny Showgrounds. Entry is $20 (free for kids under 16). See the program here.