The Big School Cook Off teams completed their cooking demonstration roadshows last week. These short demos took place at a number of our valued sponsor Supervalu NI stores in Omagh, Irvinestown, Kells, Richhill, Comber & Dungiven!

We are very excited now for the final on March 4th in Belfast Met’s fantastic kitchen facilities at their Titanic Quarter campus. We can already tell its going to be an extremely close competition & we look forward to the teams showing off their final dishes!

Following intense deliberation of over 100 entries from post primary schools across the country, the shortlist for the Mount Charles Big School Cook Off, in association with SuperValu, can now be revealed.

The first stage of the competition asked students to submit a recipe in either video or word format, for a main course dinner costing £10 or under, with consideration to creativity, health and the use of locally sourced produce.

The shortlisted County teams who will now take part in the Big School Cook Off Final at Belfast Metropolitan College (Titanic Quarter), on Wednesday 4^th March, 2020 are:

• Sophia Woods and Niamh Reynolds, St Killian’s College, Antrim 
• Martha Johnson and Tilly Henderson, City of Armagh School High School, Armagh
• Ava Hardiman and Meabh Himestra, Schoil Mhuire, Donegal 
• Ciara Rivas Kelly and Thandie Soppo Nsue, St Joseph’s College, Belfast, Down 
• Johnny Regan and Gareth Linton, Rainey Endowed School, Derry 
• Cainnecha Ferguson and Grainne Duffy, St Fanchea’s College, Fermanagh 
• Eimear Kelly and Milly Hoban, Loreto Grammar School, Tyrone 

Caitriona Lennox, Business Development Manager at Mount Charles said: “Firstly I’d like to thank all the teachers and students who took time to enter the competition this year. The panel of judges were completely blown away by the talent displayed in the submissions we received, which made it incredibly difficult to arrive at the final shortlist.

“We launched the Big School Cook Off initiative to encourage the development of cookery skills in classrooms. The number and quality of the entries we received, demonstrates to us that children are cooking, and we hope that by creating initiatives such as the Big School Cook Off that we will uncover and nurture future talent for the hospitality industry in Northern Ireland.”

Congratulating the finalists, Head of Marketing for SuperValu, Brendan Gallen, said: “At SuperValu we have a focus on Real Food and Real People and being a part of the Big School Cook Off allows us to encourage young people and families to get cooking.  We can’t wait to welcome the finalists into stores in January to showcase their fantastic dishes.”

The shortlisted teams will be invited to perform a cookery demonstration of their dish, at their local SuperValu store in January, ahead of the final on the 4^th of March 2020.

Each county winning team will receive an apron, a finalist plaque for their school and a chef’s jacket to wear to the finals and the overall winning team will receive a plaque for the winning team, Private Box VIP tickets to an SSE Arena Ice Hockey match and their school will get a £100 voucher for catering equipment of their choice.

The annual Mount Charles Big School Cook Off Competition, in association with SuperValu NI launched today! Top chefs Ian Orr, Noel McMeel, Niall McKenna, Danni Barry, Andy Rea and Michael Deane called for students interested in cooking, to get involved!

The competition, now in its fourth year, is open to all post primary school pupils across Northern Ireland and Donegal, aged between 11 and 14.

Young people in teams of two are challenged to submit a main course recipe idea that feeds two, focusing on locally sourced ingredients that can be bought on a budget of £10, or Euro equivalent.

The finalists will then have a ‘cook off’ in March 2020 in the fantastic facilities at Belfast Met’s Titanic Quarter Campus!