Sold Out for 2026 · Join the 2027 List
Sat 14 Nov 2026 Hickstead, West Sussex
Speakers 2026
Truffle science, live truffle cooking, truffle dog training secrets for beginners and a speaker panel. Every talk included with your ticket.
Sold out for 2026
Be First to Hear About 2027every year
capacity
Google reviews
under 16s
The 2026 Line-Up
A line-up worth turning up early for
The talks run through the day on the main stage. A truffle scientist, a chef cooking with fresh truffle, truffle dog training secrets for beginners, a speaker panel, and a wild food forager with a truffle demo of his own, who also hosts the whole thing.
Every one of them is included with your festival ticket. Nothing extra to book, nothing extra to pay. Sit in on all of it, or drift between the Main Stage, the have a go arena and the market as the mood takes you.
Stage times are shown with each speaker. Timings may shift a little on the day.
Truffle Forager
Ben Sweet
How to Hunt Truffles with Your Dog: 3 Secrets Every Beginner Should Know
British truffles, their history, and what you need to know to hunt them right here in the UK with your dog
10:15am to 11:05am · Opening the day
Ben is a professional truffle dog trainer and co-founder of this festival. He is first on stage, opening the day. The talk comes in two parts.
First, an introduction to British truffles. Which species grow here, the woodland they favour, and the history of truffle hunting in this country, which goes back a great deal further than most people expect.
Then his truffle dog training secrets for beginners, on getting your own dog finding them. It is built for people starting from nothing, and it covers the things that make the biggest difference in the first few weeks. It works for almost any dog. As Ben puts it, if your dog can find a tennis ball in long grass, you have a starting point.
Eat The Country
Tom Radford
Wild mushroom soup and fresh truffle, live on stage
11:20am to 11:50am
Also Your compere for the day
Tom is a wild food expert and forager who runs Eat The Country. This year he brings that to the stage with a live wild food and truffle demo, with sustainability at its heart. He will be cooking a wild mushroom and truffle soup.
He is also our compere for the day, back again to keep the ball rolling. He introduces the speakers, runs the arena and keeps several hundred people and a good many dogs roughly to schedule. He is also very funny, which helps more than you would think.
Away from the microphone his work is making wild food accessible. Through his “Death or Dinner” walks, private outings and corporate challenges he teaches seasonal plant identification, safety, and the folklore of Britain’s edible landscapes, usually finishing at the pub or round a fire.
He also shares recipes and how-tos, hosts the Eat The Country podcast, and documents sustainable food and countryside producers across the UK. Whether you have never picked anything wild in your life or you cook with it every week, his instruction is clear and his hedgerow stories are worth the walk on their own.
Main Stage
Speaker Panel
Prof. Paul Thomas, Ben Sweet, Hajira Ahmad and Jon McGowan
12:50pm to 1:20pm
Meet Jon McGowan and Tembo
Jon McGowan is a professional truffle hunter. He and his dog Tembo won the UK Truffle Dog Championships in 2023, and Jon hunts in truffle orchards up and down the country. He joins the day’s other Main Stage speakers to talk all things truffles.
The Truffle Cup winner is announced at 1:20pm.
Black Gold Experiences
Hajira Ahmad
A live truffle cooking demo, and her story
1:30pm to 2pm
Hajira returns to the festival for another year. She is the founder of Black Gold Experiences, a venture that grew out of years of truffle-focused travel in Italy and a partnership with her dog Angelo, who was truffle-trained in Tuscany.
What began as a passion became a craft, and then a career. Hajira hosts intimate truffle supper clubs and dining events, leads personalised truffle adventures, and puts together tailor-made travel that takes guests to the landscapes, producers and traditions behind great truffles. Running through all of it is a commitment to responsible harvesting and sustainability.
On the demo stage she will be cooking with fresh truffle while Tom Radford interviews her, so you get her story and the practical side at the same time. Hunting, tasting and cooking, the sort of thing you can use in your own kitchen the same week.
Black Gold Experiences also produces a small line of artisan truffle products, made in Italy in limited batches with a notably high truffle content to keep the depth of flavour. You will find them at the festival.
Mycorrhizal Systems
Prof. Paul Thomas
How the Truffle Builds Its Home: Unearthing the Hidden Ecology in Truffle Orchards
2:10pm to 3:10pm · Followed by Q&A
Prof. Paul Thomas is one of the leading truffle scientists in the world, and one of the few who can make truffle biology feel like a story. He founded Mycorrhizal Systems, is Chief Scientist at the American Truffle Company and an Honorary Professor at the University of Stirling. In 2015 his cultivation work produced the UK’s first cultivated summer truffle, and the first cultivated Périgord black truffle followed a few years later.
He also founded the National Truffle Centre on the Isle of Bute, an orchard-based hub for research and training.
Prof. Paul Thomas comes back each year with something new, and it is genuinely new each time. Expect the latest from his research and from the orchards he works with, and what it means for growers and food lovers alike.
Mycorrhizal Systems is also one of the festival’s sponsors, and we are very grateful for their support.
Included With Every Ticket
Everything on this page comes with your entry
There is no separate charge and no seat to reserve. General admission covers the full speaker programme, the have a go arena, the market and the demo stage.
Sold out for 2026 · Dogs welcome
Saturday 14th November 2026
Missed Out This Year?
The 2026 festival has sold out. Join the email list and you will be first to hear when 2027 tickets are released.
Be First to Hear About 2027Hickstead, West Sussex · Sold out for 2026