Kraut-funder!

Aim

Pickle Fest is in a pickle! We need help to fund Pickle Fest 2026 and to access a kitchen space in order to keep the project going.

Since Foodhall closed down and Social Pickle has been without a kitchen space we've had some successful activity, from foraging workshops to activities for kids over the school holidays, and of course, our big event - Pickle Fest! 

But without a kitchen we're limited in our ability to generate income. So we need a bit of a boost to get us going and to help us to be able to put on Pickle Fest again for another year. 

Please don't be put off by the £5000 target! (We just picked a random number when we were setting it up initially and then realised it can't be changed after the crowdfunder has gone live😅). What would help most is lots of small donations from people who want to keep the project running! 

Thanks to everyone who's donated so far, we've managed to raise £500 for the upfront costs of securing a venue for Pickle Fest 2026!

We're now raising funds to deliver the festival itself and keep Social Pickle going through a year of community workshops, food projects and events. Even just £250 would go a really long way!

It's time to take Social Pickle out of the fridge and get it activated! With a bit of input from lots of helpful microbes, we can put the social back in Social Pickle and get fermenting again. 

More information about Social Pickle and what we do is available on our website. 

Pickle Fest 

Pickle Fest is a community celebration of fermentation, preservation and shared creativity. Bringing together pickle enthusiasts, curious beginners, artists, musicians and local food lovers, the festival creates an inclusive space for people to learn, make, taste and connect through food.

Pickle Fest 2023 was our biggest yet, and we welcomed over 600 people to SADACCA’s G-Mill space — a long-standing community hub in the heart of Sheffield. It was so popular that we had a queue down the street and people being turned away!

At the heart of Pickle Fest is the much-loved community judged pickle competition, where attendees can submit and taste homemade preserves including jams, ferments, chutneys, hot sauces and more. Alongside this we've had drop-in workshops, DIY screen printing, live music, DJs, creative activities and communal food made using donated and surplus ingredients.

Pickle Fest has so far been run entirely by volunteers and operates on a pay-what-you-can basis, ensuring nobody is excluded through lack of money. Funds raised through the Kraut-Funder will help keep the festival accessible, support future community programming, and allow Social Pickle to continue creating inclusive spaces for creativity, learning, and shared celebration in Sheffield.

Our objectives as a social enterprise

1. Reconnecting communities with lost or undervalued food practices. Bringing people together to grow a connected community of picklers

2. Collectively exploring creative ways to utilise surplus food and extend the nutritional value of ingredients; intercepting food waste and shortening supply chains

3. Removing the high price tag from fermented foods, making better food more accessible and an understanding of bacteria more widespread  

4. Connecting with the seasons and nature around us by foraging for local ingredients and working with local food and producers

5. Showcasing a radical alternative to capitalism through a social enterprise not-for-profit business model. 

Community Impact

Over the past few years, Social Pickle has delivered creative and educational programmes across Sheffield and beyond, working with artists, schools, charities, grassroots organisations and local communities.

Our projects have included:

- free and low-cost public workshops

- intergenerational learning spaces

- creative wellbeing activities

- food education programmes

- sustainable food and waste reduction 

- sensory and accessible creative sessions

- collaborative public events and festivals

In 2024, we led a Healthy Holidays programme for Sheffield City Council, working with school children to co-create a celebratory feast experience through craft, food education and farm visits.

We’ve also partnered with community organisations including Sadacca, Sharrow Community Forum and Heeley Trust to create inclusive and culturally responsive activities rooted in participation and shared experience.

Alongside this, we’ve been commissioned by organisations including Arts Catalyst, Site Gallery, Showroom Cinema and Cinema Palestino to deliver innovative public engagement projects combining food, art, ecology and community storytelling.

Food waste

Food waste is a massive issue. The UK throws away around 9.5 million tonnes of food waste in a single year – even though 8.4 million people in the UK are in food poverty. Not only does learning to preserve our ingredients mean less waste, it’s also an opportunity to heighten our senses and trust in our intuition as to when a product is ready or good to eat, rather than relying on best-before dates and supermarket stickers. It also empowers us to make our own food products out of cheap whole ingredients. We partner with local farms and food producers to intercept pre-farmgate waste and use up those wonky vegetables to create tastebud tingling concoctions that are great for your gut.

 How will the money be spent? 

Pickle Fest costs including: 

- Venue 

- Paying artists, workshop facilitators, and bands

- Event promotion, such as leaflet printing

- Ingredients and materials 

Core costs and administrative fees, including:

- Accounting

- Web hosting

- Public liability insurance

- Food safety training and DBS checks for volunteers

Anything extra we raise will go towards: 

- Paying bills in a kitchen space

- Other materials we need to get set up in a kitchen space (eg fermenting buckets, wall paint, etc) 

This will all enable us to continue working with farms to process gluts of fruit and vegetables, and with communities to share traditional and healthy methods of food production!

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 30th July 2026 at 9:52pm