The playwright George Bernard Shaw once said: “There is no sincerer love than the love of food.”

It is an ethos that the organisers of Porthleven Food Festival have been following for the last seven years, but now they plan to extend that love to the spoken and written word.

Having already added music into the mix, this year’s three-day event from April 15 to 17 is to feature a literary festival as part of it.

Explaining the vision to the port’s town councillors, festival chairman Hannabeth Johnson said: “We are hoping to make the food festival a more cultural event.”

A literary tent will now be part of the setup, amongst a number of changes.

These will include moving the children’s area to The Moors, where Swamp Circus will hopefully being performing and passing on their skills throughout the day, along with balloons and face painting.

In the shipyard area instead will be the music area, in a larger, squarer marquee than previous years.

“We used to have a marquee that was so long the crowds at the back were bottle-necked and couldn’t see anything,” explained Hannabeth.

Live bands will perform until around 11pm on the Saturday, with the fireworks display also moved to this night.

This year pupils from Porthleven Primary School have been given the chance to programme the firework display, working closely alongside the fireworks company, which has also agreed to double the budget for the display.

The shipyard marquee will also be the location for the popular chef demonstrations during the day, giving even more people the chance to watch.

Traditionally these have taken place on the Harbour Head, but with the marquee only having the capacity for around 60 people many were left disappointed. The new location should allow roughly 200 people to enjoy the live cooking displays.

The Harbour Head marquee will instead house a farmers’ market.

The popular bridge across the entrance to the harbour will make a return – and this year will have its very own “troll” collecting money from those passing over, either for charity or festival funds.

More than 100 stalls have now signed up to take part in the event and there will be a ‘street food zone’ near the car park behind the Co-op.

Organisers are in talks with the football club regarding car parking there.

Hannabeth said the team had received a “huge amount of feedback” from people wanting just as much happening on the Sunday as the Saturday, particularly for those who have travelled some distance to attend.

“Local people knew it was more relaxed, but people coming down were disappointed, so we have to do two full days now,” said Hannabeth.

Now the festival will begin with food awards on the Friday night, followed by the main festival on the Saturday and then a bake-off and stalls during the Sunday daytime until 5pm, with more live music in the evening, finishing at 9pm.