This year 45 eateries registered across South Canterbury, and some great dishes were produced, showcasing many beautiful, tasty products. It has been one of our most successful festivals and we thank everyone for supporting the event — the producers, the eateries and all the fantastic Scoffers in our community and beyond.
To prove the point about the success of the event, we wanted to share some our analytics that show some impressive levels of engagement.
It is particularly interesting to see surges on September 2-4 in page views (of between 32,000-33,000 per day), which is the leadup to the September 5 Scoff start day. We believe this is showing that people are checking Scoff out before the event, so they can start choosing where they will be scoffing.
We were thrilled this year to welcome Air New Zealand to our team of partners through a special sponsorship deal. This meant were able to offer a special promotional deal in the Wellington region to promote Scoff, with a free return trip to attend.
The engagement for this short, sharp campaign was significant, with 39,000 views leading into the festival.
Then Air New Zealand gave us the opportunity to promote a special Tag and Win competition for $1000 worth of flight vouchers for Scoffers, and again it captured the attention of festival attendees, peaking with 55,000 views.
Scoff started in 2019 and this year ran for the longest period — 17 days including three weekends. It has grown in this time to become one of the South Island’s premium food festivals, encompassing Timaru, Temuka, Geraldine, Waimate and Mackenzie districts.
Scoff is an initiative of Venture Timaru, supported by the Mackenzie District Council, Waimate District Council and Hospitality NZ. This year, we welcomed 100% Pure NZ Honey and Air New Zealand to our key partners group.
We’re now in planning mode for 2026 and are excited to begin brainstorming ways to enhance the event further.
It is likely you’ll see Scoff mini events popping up prior to the main festival, to keep people connected.
■ Di Hay, Venture Timaru Operations and Destination Manager
