Toronto's epic two-day pickle festival is back this weekend | Daily Hive

Fareen Karim/blogTO

Canada’s largest pickle festival returns to Toronto this weekend, and we’ve got the details on everything you should get excited for.

Pickles: what was once relegated to a garnish tucked beside a club sandwich or, at best, sliced and thrown atop a Chicago-style hot dog has, in recent years, ascended to a level of stardom achieved by few other preserves. Even olives could only dream of achieving the main character status that pickles have of late.

Nowadays, you can find pickle-flavoured anything. Pickle ice cream, pickle pizza, and even pickle beer, if you can reasonably conceive of merging the flavour of pickle with any given food. So popular have pickles become over the past several years, in fact, that Toronto (and Vancouver) has its very own festival dedicated entirely to these sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, salty, briny delicacies, and it’s coming up sooner than you think.

Taking over the Junction Triangle’s Henderson Brewing Co. this weekend, Picklefest — Canada’s biggest pickle festival — is back on Sept. 20 and 21, spreading the scent of pickle juice far and wide across Toronto.

For pickle lovers, it’s one of the city’s most anticipated annual food festivals, so here’s everything you need to know about this year’s upcoming festival, which promises to be the most dill-icious yet.

What to expect

The festival promises to be a full spectacle of brine-based delights.

Described by Henderson Brewing co-founder Adin Wener as “a cultural phenomenon that celebrates the diverse tapestry of flavours that pickling brings to the culinary world,” the festivities include a bustling marketplace comprised of over 50 local vendors serving pickles by the jar, on a stick, and other pickle-inspired eats and beverages.

That’ll be paired with plenty of live entertainment, pickle-themed paraphernalia, and the star of the show, the festival’s annual home pickling contest, where an elite group of amateur picklers will walk away with cash prizes and infinite glory for their fermented food creations.

Pickled Canadian is among the list of returning vendors this year. Fareen/blogTO

Vendors

The festival features over 50 local vendors, from independent pickle makers to restaurants and more, serving up their best pickle-based treats, plus some non-pickle offerings. But only some.

Among the Toronto restaurants making appearances at this year’s Picklefest, you’ll be able to find the Annex’s Annex Social, Roncesvalles’ Barque BBQ, local Italian heavyweights Terroni, and even U.S.-based sandwich chain Jimmy John’s. They’ll all be serving up hot and fresh foods to feast on between pickle samples, in case you can’t fill your stomach on only pickles.

Speaking of, a slew of local pickle companies will also be in attendance, serving up their own distinct variations. Cheeky Pickles, Brined, Marty’s Pickles, Pickled Canadian, and Pickle Vixens are all among the must-visit stalls.

There will also be some more unique offerings on the docket, like dill-flavoured bread mixed from Dill Doughs, plant-based ice cream from Four All Ice Cream and, of course, Henderson Brewing Co.’s very own Picklefest Blonde beer.

That’s just a small sample of all the vendors you’ll be able to get a taste of at Toronto Picklefest 2025. Here’s the complete vendor lineup to start activating your appetite:

Alchemy Pickle Company
Annex Social
Aunt Beth’s Bakes
Barque BBQ
Brined
Cheeky Pickles
Dill Dough
Dipped Donuts
Dr. Auntie Ruby Stuff
Fandango Farms
FOC Foods
For Good and Twenty
Four All Ice Cream
Husky Food Importers (Kuhne Pickles)
Island Oysters
Jimmy John’s
Joanne’s Urban Pantry
Lakeside Packaging
Mamajoun Armenian Pizzeria
Mark Anthony Wines (Lindemans)
Marty’s Pickles
Matt + Steve’s
Mona’s Merch
National Bank
Neil’s Real Deal
Never Not Eating
NEVRASK
Pickled Canadian
Pickle Vixens
Play with Clay
Primrose Bagels
Prince Igor Vodka
Purple Tongue Hot Sauce
Rodyna
Romi’s
Salt + Mustard
Spade + Spoon
Spicy Balkan
Sonyo Food Co.
So Daam Foods
Sunshine Pickles
Spy Cider House + Distillery
Sweet Nothings Gourmet Marshmallow Co.
TC Tiberan Momos
Terroni
The Canadian Pickle Emporium
TheraBreath
Twisted Tomato
We Burger + Barbeque
Windwick Farm Freeze Dried Experience
Woofdawg
Square
Hey! Mom Onigiri

Contests

Aside from all the epic eats, the annual Show Us Your Pickle home pickling contest is one of the festival’s biggest draws year after year.

Amateur pickle-makers are invited to enter their creations for consideration in one of six categories: Best Dill Pickle, Best Kosher Pickle, Best Sour Pickle, Best Spicy Pickle, Most Creative Lacto-Fermented Pickle and Most Creative Vinegar Pickle, and they’ll be judged in the four categories of flavour, texture, appearance, and creativity.

For the Toronto festival, the creator of the top pickle in each category will walk away with a cash prize of $500, on top of some major bragging rights, while the best pickle overall will win $1,000.

If you think you have what it takes to create one of Toronto’s top pickles, you can enter the contest yourself. All it takes is a registration fee of $50 per category (a maximum of two categories per contestant), which also covers a one-day ticket to the festival.

If you don’t happen to be a homegrown pickle connoisseur, but you are the proud owner of a pickle-loving pup, you can also enter your fur baby into the “Relish the Pup!” best-dressed dog contest. Running both days of the festival, all you have to do is dress your dog (no cats allowed!) up as a pickle or your favourite fermented dish, and the winner each day will walk away with $200.

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Picklefest Toronto

When: Saturday, Sept. 20 and Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025
Time: Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.
Where: Henderson Brewing Co. — 128 Sterling Road
Admission: $20.95, kids under 12 free

Dished is a proud community partner for Picklefest Toronto 2025