TV FOODIE Gregg Wallace swapped Barcelona for Bolton to visit the town’s food festival this weekend.

The Masterchef judge popped in to demonstrate his culinary class between filming for a new ITV show which will take him to some of Europe’s biggest cities, including Amsterdam and Berlin.

However, despite the glamorous destinations, Gregg was “delighted” to take a look at the best Bolton has to offer.

He told The Bolton News he was hoping the culinary delights could inspire up-and-coming cooks.

“I’m really happy to wander around talking to food producers and tasting their stuff, I love that,” he said.

“Who doesn’t love it — these are basic things for life, nice food and drink, it’s such a pleasure.

“We need more cooking together because more and more of seem to be getting our food online from delivery companies and we need to get out and back in our communities and meeting and talking together again that’s for sure.”

Gregg, a former greengrocer, was also asked about the myriad of dishes and ingredients on offer at the festival.

He spoke about BBC Two hit Inside the Factory and his love for food produced on a large scale around the world.

“Everyone takes for granted that I’m going to like organics, local and seasonal but I really like coconuts, mangos and pineapples and where are we going to grow them in Bolton,” he said.

“I like all food producers but there’s no way we could feed the world on artisan producers, it’s a crazy thing to think we could — we need big cheap mass produced food.”

He went on to talk through some cookery tips to help aspiring chefs get started.

“My tip is to avoid putting your fruit and veg in the fridge if you can,” Gregg added.

“Nothing will annihilate the flavour more than refrigerating fruit and vegetables, if strawberries were meant to be cold Eskimos would grow really good ones. Don’t worry about whether it’s organic or how local it is or what variety, just keep it out of the fridge. Have fun with it.”