Eventbrite Case Study – How Women in the Food Industry Created a Culinary Community

Live experiences and events giant Eventbrite featured the growth of our community in a fabulous feature on their blog – Passion to Project – How Women In the Food  Industry Created a Culinary Community. Last Friday, their writer Helen Alexander interviewed our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim (Mex), about what inspired her and Janie Ash to set up Women In The Food Industry and asked for our top tips on events planning and marketing.

“There was a lot going on in the food industry around women’s issues and International Women’s Day was coming up in just a few weeks,” recalls Mex. “I knew we should be doing something so we organised a series of events in the lead up to 8 March. We literally only had about two weeks to organise everything.”

The post describes how the short time frame didn’t phase us (too much!) and explores our panel events and the food photography workshop which took place at venues across London. They outline how the uptake of speakers and attendees demonstrated just how enthusiastically our Women In the Food Industry (WiFi) initiative was received.

“The first event – How Food Changed My Life – was at women-only, private members club The AllBright thanks to Sabrina Gidda, the executive head chef, who offered it up to us as a space we could use.”

Two days later, our Women in Food & Drink panel and tasting experience chaired by TV Presenter and Great British Menu Judge Andi Oliver took place on the rooftop of panellist Bettina Campolucci’s flat. “Support has been so forthcoming over the past few months and everyone we’ve approached has been so positive,” says Mex. “I just can’t believe how different each event has been – they’ve been on a range of subjects, and the personality and tone of each event has been different every time.”

When it came to getting the industry’s female movers and shakers involved in their events, Mex’s previous life at Great British Chefs certainly helped. Having left in January to start a marketing and social media consultancy, her little black book of culinary contacts has been very useful.

“I knew quite a lot of chefs already and they were pleased to find out that it was someone they knew behind the initiative,” says Mex. “We got some really influential people asking us how they could be involved and what they could do. It was Janie’s idea to create a page on the website for each of the panellists where we shared their handles and provided them with a platform.”

One of our proudest moments to date was welcoming Andi Oliver (TV chef and broadcaster) to host an event. We had both met her on separate occasions and would Tweet whenever she made an appearance on Saturday Kitchen. It was a gesture she obviously appreciated – on hearing about Women In the Food Industry she reached out to us and asked to be involved.

The feature goes on to describe some of our favourite events and our tips for planning and marketing  events.

Between launching in February to mid June, our initiative has amassed 2,000 followers on Twitter and awareness continues to grow at a pace. We fully agree that it’s not just the quantity of followers that we are excited about, it’s the quality. “Sheila Dillon, Monica Galetti, Candice Brown, Nadiya Hussain. Every time someone like that follows us I’m blown away by the fact that not only are they following us, they are also engaging with us. I think it shows that we established Women In the Food Industry at the right time.” said  Mex.

The feature also previews our upcoming panel discussion and supper to mark Sustainable Gastronomy Day on Tuesday 18 June 2019, at the Cookery School in Little Portland Street. Grab your tickets on Eventbrite now!

You can read the full feature on Eventbrite’s blog and keep up to date with our events by signing up for our newsletter and following our new LinkedIn account too.