Now in its 15^th year, the competition is held in association with the Craft Guild of Chefs.

 

Designed to drum up interest in and support for British food and cooking, it's targeted at teams of student chefs working towards their professional NVQ qualification in catering and is an opportunity for them to showcase their culinary skills before embarking on their first professional job.

 

Short-listed from their paper entries, each team of three students will have to prepare, cook and serve a three-course menu for four using local and regional ingredients.

 

Facing a tough judging panel of leading industry professionals, they will be judged on their regional menu, taste, presentation, teamwork, seasoning, culinary skills, working methods and overall balance at a series of live cook-offs later this month and in early February:

 

North Highland College, Thurso

Ayr College, Ayr

South Lanarkshire College, East Kilbride

Glasgow Metropolitan College, Glasgow

Forth Valley College, Falkirk

 

Sheffield College, Sheffield

Liverpool Community College, Liverpool

Blackpool & Fylde College, Blackpool x 4 teams

 

Westminster Kingsway College, London x 2 teams

Thames Valley University, Ealing

West Kent College, Tonbridge x 2 teams

Thurrock & Basildon College, Grays x 2 teams

Thanet College, Broadstairs x 2 teams

Highbury College Portsmouth, Portsmouth

Hastings College, Hastings

 

North Warks & Hinckley College, Nuneaton x 2 teams

Milton Keynes College, Milton Keynes

Cambridge Regional College, Cambridge

Loughborough College, Loughborough

 

Shrewsbury College, Shrewsbury

City of Bristol College, Bristol

 

The members of each winning team will each receive £75 of Brakes Catering Equipment vouchers and team members of the two runners-up will also receive £40 of vouchers, while the five regional winners will be invited to take part in the live final at ScotHot in Glasgow on 4th March.

 

Martin Bates, chief executive officer of the Craft Guild of Chefs said: "The Craft Guild of Chefs are delighted to be involved with the organising of this year's challenge. This is an ideal opportunity for colleges to enter teams of young chefs and for those young-guns to build their confidence and skills through competition. If the paper entries are anything to go by the regional cook-offs are going to be tough to mark for the teams of judges from The Craft Guild of Chefs and Brakes development chefs as well as our colleagues the Welsh and Scottish Federation of Chefs."

 

Talking about the competition, James Armitage, marketing director at Brakes said: "What shines out about these entries is that there is genuine interest and knowledge of regional ingredients and dishes out there. Promoting the use of home grown and reared produce to our customers, we've long supported British food and farmers. Always keen to implement initiatives like this and champion British food wherever possible, we hope this will inspire these students to support British food throughout their careers."