McDougalls Young Baking Team of the Year competition returns with new focus

Premier Foods is bringing back its McDougalls Young Baking Team of the Year competition for the fifth year running, and will focus on how cookery skills can help build children’s overall confidence.

Judges returning include – Carol Harwood, representing LACA; Andrew Green, representing the Craft Guild of Chefs; and Mark Rigby, Executive Chef at Premier Foods. After the recipe competition closes on Friday 17^thMay, the judges will whittle down the entries and invite five shortlisted teams to the live final at LACA – The Main Event on Thursday 11^thJuly 2019.

Schools looking to bake their way to the top spot should recruit a team of up to three enthusiastic 7-11 year olds and register online. The winning team will take home the jackpot of £1,000 worth of equipment for their school kitchen, whilst each of the four runners up will win £250 worth of equipment. The competition theme will continue to focus on local produce, encouraging schools to source ingredients within a 30 mile radius of their school for their McDougalls recipes – helping children learn more about where their food comes from.

Mark Taylor, customer controller at Premier Foods, comments: “All the team here at Premier Foods look forward to the McDougalls Young Baking Team of the Year competition every year, it really is one of the highlights in the calendar. It has proved such an important tool for teaching children cookery skills, the importance of local ingredients and above all, has proved a real confidence booster for them. We have had many teachers and parents commenting to us after the competition, to let us know how far the children have come during the process, we’ve noticed it too and it’s so great to see at the live final each year..”

Country Range Group customer Nic Hastie, school chef at St Martin and St Mary’s C of E Primary School, 2018 winner, comments: “Since winning the competition it has given both myself and the children a real confidence boost. It has really taught the children that if you work hard you can achieve your goals. When I look back to the beginning of the process, when we first started practicing for the competition and how they have come out of their shell since taking part and winning, it is incredible. The £1,000 prize money which we received as a result of our victory has been used to set up a weekly after school cookery club, it has paid for chef coats for the children and the equipment we need in order to make it a success. We launched this just after the October half term, opening it up to years three to six and we’ve already had over 40 sign ups. We’re really hoping it will encourage the children to start baking more at home too with their families.”

Schools up for the baking challenge can register their interest at www.premierfoodservice.co.uk and will receive a McDougalls toolkit within seven days which will include product samples, an application form and recipe inspiration. Teams will be asked to create either a sweet or savoury recipe, which includes one local ingredient[1]and one McDougalls Flour Based Mix for submission.

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