The creation of an annual BRE&D Week to showcase local food and wine was one of the key recommendations out of Kim Currie’s Action Plan for the Bathurst Wine Industry, commissioned by the Bathurst Region Vignerons Association in 2011.

The week was to come after the Bathurst 1000 each year to build on the excitement around town created by the Great Race.

But after just two years the week has been put on the backburner as those charged with putting it together – the local winemakers – simply don’t have the time to do the job. And that has been the danger all along.

This newspaper has long argued that Bathurst will only advance as a food and wine destination once a full-time co-ordinator is given the task of bringing all the local producers together.

And while it might be fair for each of the local food and wine producers to contribute to the co-ordinator’s wages, Bathurst Regional Council should foot most of that bill.

Mudgee and Orange have shown what can be achieved when council gets behind its food and wine producers to make local tourism promotion a real priority.

And while Bathurst will never have the sheer number of wineries present in those two areas, our city does boast the unique advantages of proximity to Sydney, national brand awareness through Mount Panorama and even our own microdistillery to set us apart from other regional centres.

But the local industry will never reach its full potential until one person – a marketing professional – is given the job of ensuring key events like BRE&D Week not only survive, but prosper.

And if that finally happens, then the demise of BRE&D Week this year might one day be considered the best thing that ever happened to our local food and wine industries.