12th January 2018

Country Range announces 2017/18 Student Chef Challenge semi-finalists

Written by: Katie Imms
Country Range has announced the 16 teams going through to the semi-finals of its Student Chef Challenge 2018, hosted in conjunction with the Craft Guild of Chefs:
  1. Loughborough College
  2. City of Liverpool College
  3. City College Norwich
  4. Ayrshire College
  5. Newcastle College
  6. City of Glasgow College
  7. Westminster Kingsway
  8. SERC (Downpatrick) College
  9. Newbury College
  10. Gloucestershire College
  11. University of Derby
  12. College of West Anglia
  13. Highbury College
  14. Waltham Forrest
  15. East Kent College
  16. North East Scotland College

Taking place throughout January, the three-man teams will be subjected to “intense competition conditions” while cooking under the eye of Craft Guild of Chefs Chairman of Judges, Chris Basten, and challenge organiser Emma Holden of the Country Range Group.

With only 10 qualifying for the Live Grand Final on 7 March at Hotelympia 2018, organiser Emma 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.”

Chris Basten, Craft Guild of Chefs Chairman of Judges, 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 10 can now make it through so a well done to them.”