Culinary Students Excited By Return Of Cooking Challenge

Culinary students have an exciting goal to set their sights on this year with the return of the National Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge after a two-year break due to Covid.

NSSCC chief judge Mark Wylie says the event, run by the Culinary Arts Development Trust is used to promote hospitality as a career to students with an interest in becoming chefs, restaurant managers or fulfilling roles within the industry. It also provides a platform for teachers to network and meet industry contacts.

“This competition is more important than ever now. The hospitality industry has taken a hell of a hit in the last two years and our industry colleagues will be looking to New Zealand more than ever before for students coming through who can fill roles. So the relevance of this competition is particularly important to the future of re-establishing our hospitality sector as we move on from the pandemic impact. Given everything we’ve gone through, it is really important,” says Mark.

And he assures Food Technology, Home Economics, and Hospitality teachers and students that the trust has developed a strategy to ensure the challenge proceeds this year without any Covid interruptions.

Part of that strategy is to move the eight regional semi-finals online where teams of two students (with their teacher as their manager) will prepare and present an entrée with beetroot as the ‘hero’ of the dish. Once they have presented their dish it must be photographed to demonstrate all its components.

Students will need to fill in a questionnaire to demonstrate the thought process and skill behind their dish.

Over $8,000 worth of prizes will be awarded in the semi-final.

A finalist team from each of the eight regions will then compete in a live kitchen challenge at Manukau Institute of Technology in Auckland on September 7 where $12,000 in prizes are up for grabs including a Moffat E23M3 oven for the winning school.

The closing date for regional entries is July 8.

To express interest for 2022 NSSCC please e-mail info@nsscc.nz or go to www.nsscc.nz for more information.

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