Festival Fairness: A Call For More Diversity

Local media has been abuzz with horror that the line up of chefs for this year’s Food & Fun festival, now in its 21st year (sans the Covid years), is full of men. Never mind that the same media were at the launch party when the lineup was announced and reservations open for the three-day long festival and no one flagged it. It took an outraged social media post by a restaurateur for the issue to be picked up.

Calls for inclusion, however, I’ve come to learn, only mean gender. In the past, the same festival has had an all white lineup with perhaps one woman and no one seemed to notice that even when the opportunity to choose from a diverse pool of talent is presented, decisions reflect otherwise. I do find it ironic that food festivals that promise a taste of the world often celebrate cuisines that exclude the people and cultures the food belongs to — even when the food is a cultural bridge we so desperately need. So I wasn’t surprised that people enraged at an all-male line up are also often the ones who don’t bat an eye at an all white lineup.

Food festivals have a responsibility to exercise their power and influence in being leaders that shifts the industry towards being a truly inclusive business that reflects its workforce and the community it serves.

That being said, Food & Fun has in the past had not just female chefs, but both first and third culture chefs like Nokx Majozi, Deuki Hong and Georgiana Viou, to name a few. The Matey Seafood Festival has similarly had an all-male lineup for two years now — it’s something the organisers are aware needs to be remedied and fast.

Food festivals have a responsibility to exercise their power and influence in being leaders that shifts the industry towards being a truly inclusive business that reflects its workforce and the community it serves. For too long now, participants and organisers have fed and leaned into the consumption patterns of a society that holds the consumer of culture as the apex predator. It isn’t surprising, then, that festival lineups often are what they are — a reflection of the industry itself.

This massively disregards the reality on the ground: 30% of the local hospitality industry comprises immigrants. Their percentage in leadership roles is practically non-existent. Women make up 58% of the global hospitality workforce and only 35% hold decision-making powers. I’d imagine the numbers aren’t too far off, if not worse, in Iceland.

It shouldn’t take a festival line up for the industry to sit up and notice what is wrong with its work culture. It’s time that the food and beverage industry takes an honest look at itself and checks the biases that plagues it.