The competition challenged school chefs to design, cook and serve a nutritious food item that can be eaten ‘on-the-go’ by youngsters. Chefs were tasked to cook four portions of a grab & go meal or breaktime savoury snack with a total cost per head of 80p (to include food costs and serving item- box, cone, paper wrapping) in just 40 minutes.
Alto’s winning dish was a longganisa rice burger. He will be given a demonstration slot on the LACA Live feature today (Wednesday 9th July) at 12pm in Hall One to showcase his winning dish to Main Event attendees.
He said: “It’s one of the best competitions I have ever entered. I am still up in the air to be honest. I can’t believe I actually won this thing to be fair. I appreciate everything, thank you.”
Alto explained that he used his feedback from the 2024 Grab ‘N’ Go Challenge, where he reached the regional final stage, to help him develop his dish for this year. His winning dish of longganisa rice burger was inspired from the Filipino breakfast staple that he enjoys with his family.
The overall winner will receive £500, plus a £500 set of Wüsthof professional chef’s knives donated by sponsor SchoolGrid.
Dugald Curtis, chief executive of SchoolGrid, commented: “SchoolGrid is proud to support LACA’s Grab ‘N’ Go Challenge. It’s a great opportunity to showcase the talent and creativity of school chefs, whilst demonstrating the tough financial constraints they have to work under.
“It’s a real challenge to come up with something you have to carry, whilst coming in on price, that doesn’t use too much packaging and has to cater for various different diets. Congratulations to all the competitors who took part and to winner Andre Alto.”
The judges at the LACA Grab ‘N’ Go Challenge were SchoolGrid representative Lin O’Brien MBE, former School Chef of the Year(SCOTY) winner Holly Charnock, student judge Adam Curtis and 2024 winner Angela McCurry (Nourish Catering) from Pride Academy.
Charnock, who was chair of judges, added: “What a great competition. Everyone was on time, and all competitors were very clean with perfect benches throughout. Andre’s dish stood out for the judges because it was original and full of technicality. It was something outside of the box and the flavours worked really well, we thought it would be popular in schools.”
Marks were awarded for originality of the finished dish, ease of eating on the go, practicality of the dish in a school setting, how well the flavours and ingredients work together, variety of textures in the finished dish and whether it is appealing to look at.
The runners-up were Andy Lidster, from John Wallis CofE Academy (Impact Food Group) and Nerinder Kaur, from King Edwards VI Aston boys (Alliance in Partnership/Sodexo).