The annual Wild Food Festival is back next Saturday and for food lovers, it cannot be missed.

This year the event, at Mahy Reserve, Ōhope, is bigger than ever, with more demonstrations and food tastings.

From executive chefs to local foodies to hunters and fishermen, there is something for everyone to see:

* Tio Ohiwa oyster shucking demo while talking about oyster farming.

* Sustainable fishing and cooking with kahawai.

* Learn the art of fermentation and learn to grow kumara.

The Smokey Zone will have open fire cooking all day long:

*  Keeping it Wild YouTube star Shay Williamson will be cooking possums in a camp oven.

* Paul Patterson will be cooking wild game on a custom-built open fire.

* Plains Butchery’s Toby Bakker will be doing a venison breakdown onsite from his crane truck and demonstrating how he makes sausages.

An amazing 21 food vendors/food trucks will be lined up and all will be selling at least two exclusive festival dishes that you can’t get anywhere else.

* Chez Louis – Venison Plum pizza, Mussel Pizza, Smoked kahawai pizza, honey macadamia pizza

Free tastings will include:

* Pork and watercress sausages
* Kawakawa and honey shots
* Smoked tuna on seaweed crackers
* Spit pig with apple and horopitosauce

* Akira’s BBQ – King fish/trevally spring rolls, Paua Empanada

* Taste of Kiwiana – Whitebait butties, mussel butties

* Washington Street Filipino – Goat Adobo, Seafood Boil

* The Berry Boys – Julian’s Berry Farm Ranui Berries with Kawakawa Ice Cream and Julian’s Berry Farm Strawberries with local Manuka Honey Ice Cream

* Black & White Coffee and Real Fruit Ice Cream – Lavender and Blueberry Ice Cream, Elderflower Lemonade, Hot/ Iced Wild Mint Chocolate, Iced Dandelion Tea

* Native Tree Farm – Kawakawa Frappe, Native Forest Cheesecake

Five beverage and alcohol providers, including Mata Brewery, Herringbone Wine, Dabblers Gin, The Comm and Wai Manuka will be ready to serve visitors and five-piece band Peanut Slab will play all day.

Thirteen market stalls are also available.

The Cooking Challenges are popular and this year there is the classic Individual Cooking Challenge where contestants enter a dish for judging.

The dish must have at least one ingredient from the wild and they present the dish and tell the story behind it.

Celebrity judges include Joe Mcleod and Anne Thrope.

The Team Mystery Box Challenge returns bigger and better.

Teams of three are given a box of mystery ingredients and have 45 minutes to cook up a storm for their chance to win awesome prizes, including trips to Moutohora Sanctuary, and Deluxe Lake Front Spas at Polynesians Spas.

There are four rounds on the day – meat, seafood, vegetarian and youth.