The Isle of Man Food and Drink Festival is now less than two weeks away and there’s a full house of exhibitors booked to come along.

This includes a dozen businesses that have never been to the festival before.

Lucy Verdon, marketing executive at DEFA, said: ’It has been wonderful to see the appetite from local businesses wishing to participate in this year’s festival.

’There is always a great deal of enthusiasm but we have been inundated with interest and are really excited about the line-up.’

One of the highlights of this year’s show will be a collaboration between several local businesses to celebrate the island’s native breed, the Manx loaghtan.

We may see their pictures everywhere, in tourist brochures and on postcards, but loaghtans are an endangered breed. Indeed, they are labelled as ’at risk’ on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust watchlist.

Manx loaghtan breeders and enthusiasts like Jenny Shepherd and Rawdon Hayne from Ballacosnahan Farm in Patrick say that the only way to ensure the breed’s survival in the long term is to create a demand for their products, both wool and meat.

They have teamed up with The Grill Pit, Island Sheepskins and Laxey Woollen Mills to bring the Manx Loaghtan Experience to the festival.

Jenny says: ’We want everyone to do well with their loaghtan, not just ours, then everyone benefits.

’We want everyone doing something with their loaghtan because then the breed is safe.

’If you can show it’s commercially viable more people might want to do it.

’It’s not safe at the moment and it’s actually more precarious than people realise.’

Jenny and Rawdon have a flock of around 1,000 loaghtans.

Along with Dougie Bolton in Kirk Michael, who has around 1,500, they account for majority of loaghtans in the island and indeed in the world.

As she points out, if they were to drop out there would be very few of the breed left.

Jenny and Rawdon have concentrated on wool production and have a thriving business selling wool, knitting kits, shawls and blankets and sheepskins through their online shop with the USA being their biggest market.

Now they are collaborating with The Grill Pit to start marketing their loaghtan meat more widely too.

Rawdon says: ’If you add the wool and the meat together then you’ve got a really viable business.’

Darren Nicholson from The Grill Pit discovered Loaghtan meat when Rawdon gave him a pack of sausages to try.

The Grill Pit, which Darren runs along with his wife Jennifer, specialises in weddings and corporate events and Darren reckons that this his given them the opportunity to allow around 1,000 more people to sample loaghtan meat.

He says: ’I have not had one person that has not complimented the quality of the product - they love it.’

Loaghtan, he adds, should not ever be called ’lamb’ because loaghtans are so much older, at least two years old, before they go for meat.

He says: ’We need to get the public to try it first of all, and to understand that lamb is a product that goes on the plate before it’s 12 months old, loaghtan is mature and the flavour is much more like venison.’

Like venison it’s also leaner, almost invariably entirely grass fed and therefore a very healthy product.

Darren says: ’We’re working closely with Tate’s butchers in Peel - they’ve been fabulous for us, creating the sausages and the different flavours.

’Tate’s will stock Loaghtan when there’s a demand for it - we need to create that demand.’

Darren adds: ’For me it’s about the flavour of the product. And there’s no more local product in the island than loaghtan - it’s our heritage.’

Jenny and Rawdon will be bringing their wool products to the festival, which include knitting wool and knitting kits, shawls and blankets and even twine.

The other two loaghtan enthusiasts taking part in the Manx Loaghtan Experience are Jim Middleton from Island Sheepskins and John Wood from Laxey Woollen Mills.

John will be bringing a loom and demonstrating weaving a Manx loaghtan tweed.

He says: ’We’re bringing loads and loads of products to the show: from slippers to hats and everything in between, to show people what can happen with loaghtan and what we can do in Laxey.’

One of his ’star performer’ products which he will be bringing is a Manx loaghtan wool duffel coat which he says is creating quite a stir with one large UK retailer very keen to start selling them.

All of the producers in the Manx Loaghtan Experience hope that they can bring Manx loaghtan wool and meat to a wider audience which will help and create a demand from the public for these products and, ultimately, ensure the survival our the island’s only native breed.