The 35th Annual Strawberry Festival in Santa Maria came to an end on Sunday after unveiling a new plaza where people had the chance to listen to live music in a makeshift food court with local vendors.
According to the CEO of the Santa Maria Fair Park, the festival is a celebration of Santa Barbara County's biggest commodity — strawberries.
“If you look at our AG report, there is $800 million for strawberries alone," Kaitlin Miller said. "So our economy is highly dependent on this commodity. And it's a celebration of the growers, the pickers, and the packers all coming together to make that possible for us.”
There were 100 commercial and food vendors present with each vendor required to have a strawberry-themed item.
“That's everything from the traditional funnel cake to something more creative, like strawberry tamales, strawberry french fries, and then our commercial vendors are a mix of big vendors that travel all over the United States and our local vendors," Miller added.
For local vendors, the strawberry festival is a way to promote their business, and the strawberry theme is put to use.
“Every year I've had more fun coming up with new flavors," Donna Earnest, Donna's Rustic Scones owner. "I made sure that I had plenty of strawberry scones and those have been a very good seller.”
For new business owner, Ruth Corona, this was her first strawberry festival representing her dessert company with her family and the theme has helped business boom.
“Strawberry flavored cake happens to be the number one requested flavor for all of our cakes anyways, so that was kind of our specialty," Corona, owner of Agape Desserts said.
