MOULTRIE, Ga. — You can’t talk about farming without talking about food. In fact there’s a bumper sticker to that effect.

So in an on-going effort to offer something for every visitor, the Sunbelt Expo has added a variety of cooking demonstrations over recent years. These cooking demonstrations are conducted daily by some of the South’s best chefs and can be found in Family Living, in the Georgia Department of Ag’s Georgia Grown Building and in the Fish Ponds exhibit tent.

The Family Living Building is where you’ll find the popular Lauri Jo’s Southern Style Celebrity Cooking Stage. Each year some of the most entertaining and renowned chefs from throughout the Southeast take the stage to showcase their culinary skills. Daily cooking demonstrations at 11 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. will highlight dishes from this year’s theme “Southern Cooking Brings Them Home.” The celebrity chefs joining Lauri Jo Bennett on stage this year hail from the country music world and a hometown girl, Chef Chip Reed and Ivy Odom.

When he isn’t on tour with Zac Brown, Chip Reed is the catering director for Zac Brown’s Southern Ground and manages events for Zac’s kitchen on 18 wheels named “Cookie.” The proceeds from the rental of Cookie benefit Zac’s non-profit, passion project Camp Southern Ground located in Fayetteville, Georgia. According to Camp Southern Ground’s website, the camp hosts campers ranging in ages from 7-17 from all socioeconomic backgrounds, races and religions. The camp offers programs that will challenge, educate, and inspire. It brings together typically developing children, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), learning and attention issues such as ADHD and dyslexia, and social or emotional challenges. Camp Southern Ground also supports and includes children of military families as a vital part of its camper population. To find out more about Camp Southern Ground visit www.campsouthernground.org.

Ivy Odom is a chef, recipe tester and developer, cooking instructor, and a true Southerner. She currently works in the Time Inc. Food Studios where she develops and tests recipes for Southern Living, Cooking Light, Coastal Living, Real Simple, People, MyRecipes, and other Time Inc. brands. Ivy is from Moultrie and currently resides in Birmingham, Alabama, with her dog, Basil.

Family Living is a favorite stop for Expo visitors. The building has more than 175 different exhibitors with unique products for home, garden and kitchen. The Taste of Georgia Marketplace is a specialty shopping area in the Family Living Building and is located adjacent to the cooking stage. The Marketplace exhibits are Georgia made and Georgia Grown products.

Join Executive Chef Holly Chute in the Georgia Department of Agriculture and Farm Bureau Building to experience Georgia’s No. 1 industry as you have never seen it before. Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about the Seasons and Faces of Georgia Agriculture, view informative videos from agribusinesses across the state, and gather great recipes and cooking tips. Chef Holly, as she is affectionately known, will demonstrate preparing southern favorites including chicken and waffles, deviled eggs and peach cobbler. Come sit and watch Chef Holly serve up her food magic on Tuesday and Wednesday at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. and Thursday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

When most people think about preparing catfish, they think of one way — the southern way, and that’s fried. Although it’s delicious, Chef Chris Wilton wants visitors to expand their recipe collections with other ways to prepare US Farm Raised catfish. Chef Chris grew up on the Gulf Coast near Dog River. He has been cooking and catering since he was 13 years old with his dad’s catering business in Mobile, Alabama. In 2006 he started his family catering business in Auburn.