The deadline extension ensures teams have enough time to perfect their menus and enter. It also allows teams who have already submitted their applications extra time to practice, test and tweak their menus.

Graham Caldwell, organiser of the Country Range Student Chef Challenge, said: “The start of the college year in September and lead up to Christmas can be such a busy period for lecturers and students so we felt it was only fair to extend the deadline to allow the teams extra time to fine-tune their menus.

“There has been a great amount of interest shown in this year’s challenge and we want to ensure the opportunity is open to as many teams as possible so hopefully the deadline extension will allow us to do this.” 

The focus for this year’s competition is ‘Love Local’ and challenges teams to discover and showcase the best of their local area. Each team of three culinary students need to prepare, cook and present a three-course, four-cover menu.

This year’s challenge has an added twist with five Country Range kitchen staples such the Chocolate Drops, lemon juice, bouillon, flour, tomato paste, pure clear honey, salt, bay leaves, sesame seeds, dried herbs and spices required to be used by each team.

The first stage of the competition is a written menu submission and teams can send their menu submissions through to [email protected] by 22nd December.