These festivals have been a means of uniting communities through celebrations of harvests and giving thanks for a plentiful growing season.
Food festivals throughout the world are often based on traditional farming techniques and the seasons of the year.
[1] While historically aligned with culturally significant food harvesting periods, contemporary food festivals are usually associated with businesses entities or nonprofit organizations and engage a great deal of marketing for their festivals, since their success is measured off how much revenue they generate for the local community, region, or entity putting on the event.
[3] Several case studies have shown that food festivals can potentially improve social sustainability while also heavily supporting the tourism and hospitality industries.
Vegetarian food festivals include VegFests in Boston, Massachusetts; Salt Lake City, Utah; and San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; including the premier Boston Vegetarian Food Festival in autumn, an event originally copied from the then already longstanding Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair in Toronto, Ontario.