The brigade will be the first team of its type to compete at the Culinary Olympics, which will be held in Stuttgart between 14 and 19 February 2020. The team of chefs will be wearing whites emblazoned with the Essential Cuisine logo. 

Essential Cuisine is the lead sponsor for The Culinary Ability Awards who helped assemble the culinary team. The chef team is made up of chefs from Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Germany. 

Chris Sandford, founder of the Culinary Ability Awards, said: “We’re massively grateful to the guys and girls at Essential Cuisine for helping us get to this historic point. 

“The Culinary Ability Awards don’t receive any public funding and we have had to bankroll the large part of this venture, save for donations from benevolent industry friends and the overwhelming support of Essential Cuisine. It’s massively appreciated and allows us to get down to doing what we love and what we’ve trained for – competitive cooking.”

The team will be competing against other chef teams from around the world in the ‘community kitchen’ category where they will have to prepare 120 portions of a three-course menu against the clock. 

Jonathan Harvey-Barnes, senior business development chef at Essential Cuisine, added: “The Culinary Ability Awards are an incredible, inspirational setup – an organisation that we’ve supported for a decade or more. We’re extremely proud that this team will be wearing whites adorned with the Essential Cuisine logo as they do battle for the very first time at the Culinary Olympics.

“I urge chefs, suppliers, manufacturers, operators – anyone with a vested interest in the food industry – to get behind them, cheer them on and donate as much as they can so they can keep training people with disabilities to make a difference in professional kitchens. We’re with them every step of the way.”

Companies that want to support the Culinary Ability Awards can donate via: http://www.culinaryabilityawards.com/.