Silver lining for UCOL Culinary Arts students

Silver lining for UCOL Culinary Arts students

Whanganui UCOL’s Culinary Arts students took seven medals at this week’s prestigious Nestlé Toque d’Or competition at the National Culinary Fare in Auckland.

The nine strong team also gained valuable insight into the industry, says UCOL Programme Leader for Catering and Hospitality, Tim Snape.

“The team and the individual competitors performed extremely well under the pressure of competition,” he says. “It was a huge learning curve for the students and tremendously important for them to be in the public eye of their industry.”

Tim says all nine UCOL students who took part received an award - an excellent achievement.

Culinary students Ziek Hudson and Craig Gray, and restaurant service student, Amber-Rose Edwardson, gained silver medals in the kitchen and restaurant categories of their Toque d’Or ‘golden hat’ event.

Among the individual medal winners was Lee Cameron who, along with Ziek Hudson will leave for Switzerland as one of two Whanganui UCOL second year Culinary Arts students to take part in an exchange programme this year.

Both will spend five weeks at Gewerblich-Industrielle Berufsschule, a vocational school in the town of Zug.

Susan Renggli and Marco Zimmermann, the two students from the Swiss school who arrived in Wanganui earlier this month as part of the exchange, joined the Whanganui UCOL team and were also among the medal winners.

The award winners:
Marco Zimmermann: Silver medal and winner of class – Venison (senior)
Lee Cameron: Silver Medal and winner of class – Cold Dessert (senior)
Susan Regalee: Bronze medal – Salmon (junior)
Ben Fackney: Bronze Medal – Salmon (junior)
Lance Tito: Bronze Medal – Pasta (junior)
Simon Anderson: Certificate of Merit – Dessert (junior)

Toque d’Or:
Kitchen: Ziek Pittams-Hudson and Craig Gray silver medal
Restaurant: Amber-Rose Edwardson silver medal.

The team from UCOL Palmerston North also did well, taking top placings in both the kitchen and the restaurant events, in the Toq d’Or.

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