Taking place throughout the month, the following teams will go head-to-head for the chance to compete in the grand final at Hotelympia on 7 March:

• Ayrshire College
• City of Liverpool College                                 
• City College Norwich
• City of Glasgow College
• College of West Anglia
• East Kent College
• Gloucestershire College
• Highbury College
• Loughborough College      
• Newbury College
• Newcastle College
• North East Scotland College
• SERC (Downpatrick) College                           
• University of Derby                          
• Waltham Forrest
• Westminster Kingsway

In its 24^th year, this year’s ‘around the world in three spices’ theme will see each team of three develop and cook a three-course, three-cover menu in 90 minutes in front of Craft Guild of Chefs chairman of judges, Chris Basten, and event organiser Emma Holden of the Country Range Group. 

Holden said: “The standard of entrants this year has been remarkably high and the menus put forward by the student chefs sound absolutely delicious so I’m very excited to see the finished dishes and try the food.

“The paper judging standard increases every single year so it’s now up to the teams to deal with the pressure and ensure they can do the menus and ingredients they have chosen justice.”

Basten added: “Spice themes always ensure creativity so it’s brilliant to see such innovative uses of different spices across the menus. Balancing spices in dishes is a tough skill so it’s obvious a lot of testing and preparation has been put into the applications.

“Congratulations to everyone who applied as each and every application had merit, but unfortunately only 16 can make it through so a well done to them.”