Young People Gain Real Work Experience at Bolton Food & Drink Festival 2026 | Genuine Futures
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From Designing a Pie to Selling It at Bolton Food & Drink Festival 2026
What happens when young people are given the opportunity to take an idea, help develop a real product and then sell it to customers at one of Bolton’s biggest events?
At Bolton Food & Drink Festival 2026, young people from Genuine Futures, including Cameron, Blake and Luis, got the opportunity to find out.
Working alongside HM Pasties, the young people have been part of a journey that has taken them from the Design a Pie project through to gaining hands-on experience at the festival.
This story isn’t about one young person. It’s about creating opportunities where different young people can contribute, develop their strengths and experience what the world of work and enterprise can actually feel like.
For Genuine Futures, that’s what bridging the gap to opportunity means.
Cameron, Blake and Luis: Different Roles, Shared Opportunity
Every young person brings something different to an opportunity.
Cameron and Blake have been part of the hands-on experience surrounding the project and festival, working alongside HM Pasties and experiencing the realities of being part of a busy public event.
Luis has also contributed by using his communication skills to document the experience. As part of our History of Bolton series, he walked through the first day of Bolton Food & Drink Festival, showing viewers what was happening across the town centre and explaining how Genuine Futures young people would be getting involved over the weekend.
The important story is what sits behind all of those individual roles: young people being trusted to participate rather than simply observe.
Watch Luis take us inside Bolton Food & Drink Festival 2026
From Designing a Pie to Selling It
The journey began before the festival itself.
Through our collaboration with HM Pasties, young people took part in a Design a Pie project, giving them an opportunity to contribute ideas and understand more about how a food product moves from concept towards something that can actually be produced and sold.
Then came the opportunity to take it into the real world.
Their special pie was made available through the HM Pasties stall at Bolton Food & Drink Festival.
As Luis explains in the video:
“You can only get them here!” 
That meant festival visitors weren’t simply hearing about something young people had created. They could actually buy it.
For the young people involved, that creates an important connection between ideas, enterprise, production, marketing, customer service and income.
Real Work Experience in the Heart of Bolton
Over the festival weekend, the young people had the opportunity to work alongside the HM Pasties team on their stall.
That matters.
We can talk to young people about employment, teamwork and customer service, but some of the most valuable learning happens when they are trusted with genuine responsibility.
A busy festival environment provides opportunities to practise:
- communicating with customers;
- working as part of a team;
- building confidence;
- managing responsibility;
- developing customer service skills;
- understanding how a business operates;
- representing themselves and an organisation professionally; and
- seeing the relationship between a product and the customer who buys it.
These are transferable skills that can support future progression into employment, education, training and enterprise.
Young People Need Opportunities to Demonstrate What They Can Do
Many of the young people Genuine Futures works alongside face barriers to employment or education.
Some may have experienced exclusion, periods outside education or employment, care, youth justice involvement or other challenges.
Those experiences should not define their future.
Often, what is missing isn’t potential. It’s the opportunity to demonstrate it.
That’s why Genuine Futures focuses on creating practical experiences where young people can discover their strengths, build relationships and develop evidence of what they can do.
A young person who may struggle to explain themselves during a formal interview can demonstrate reliability by turning up for a shift.
Someone who lacks confidence can discover that they’re good at speaking with customers.
Another young person might discover an interest in food, hospitality, sales, marketing or running their own business.
Opportunity can reveal potential that traditional systems sometimes miss.
More Than Work Experience
There is also a wider reason why opportunities like this matter.
Young people shouldn’t simply be brought into programmes designed for them. Wherever possible, they should have opportunities to create, contribute and take ownership.
The Design a Pie project allowed young people to be involved with something tangible.
They could see an idea develop.
They could see a product produced.
They could see it displayed on a stall.
They could help sell it.
And they could see members of the public buying something they had helped create.
That creates a different kind of learning.
It says:
Your ideas have value.
You have something to contribute.
There is a place for you here.
Local Businesses Can Help Bridge the Gap to Opportunity
This experience also demonstrates why partnerships with local businesses are so important.
Organisations such as Genuine Futures can build trusted relationships, provide mentoring and help young people overcome barriers.
But sustainable pathways into employment require employers and businesses to be part of the solution.
HM Pasties has helped create an environment where young people can experience enterprise alongside people actually running a business.
We want to build more partnerships like this across Bolton and beyond.
Imagine if more local businesses offered just one meaningful opportunity to a young person: a workplace visit, mentoring session, work experience placement, enterprise challenge, Try a Trade day or interview.
Collectively, those opportunities could create a significant local pathway into employment.
Social Impact and Economic Impact Can Work Together
The festival also shows that supporting young people isn’t separate from supporting Bolton’s economy.
Young people working at a busy town-centre event are contributing.
They’re helping a business.
They’re interacting with customers.
They’re participating positively in their community.
They’re developing employability skills.
And they’re beginning to build the networks and experiences that can help them progress.
That’s why we believe social impact and economic opportunity should reinforce each other.
Young people shouldn’t only be seen as recipients of support.
They can be employees, entrepreneurs, volunteers, creators, customers and contributors to their communities.
Celebrating Every Young Person’s Contribution
One of the lessons we continually take from our work is the importance of recognising the different ways young people contribute.
Not everybody needs to be the person holding the microphone or standing in front of the camera.
Some young people will tell the story.
Others will serve customers, develop ideas, solve problems, organise, create or simply take an important first step by turning up and getting involved.
All of those contributions matter.
Cameron, Blake, Luis and the other young people involved each played a part in this opportunity.
Our responsibility is to keep creating environments where more young people can find their role, their strengths and their next opportunity.
Help Us Create the Next Opportunity
Bolton Food & Drink Festival is one experience. We want it to lead to many more.
Genuine Futures is looking for businesses, employers, schools, community organisations and partners that want to help create practical pathways for young people.
You could support a young person through:
work experience • mentoring • workplace visits • Try a Trade sessions • enterprise projects • volunteering • training • apprenticeships • employment
If your organisation can open a door, share a skill or create an opportunity, we’d like to hear from you.
Genuine Futures CIC
hello@genuinefutures.co.uk
genuinefutures.co.uk
Bridging the gap to opportunity.