LACA chair encourages school caterers to enter Grab ‘N’ Go Challenge
Competitors are required to prepare cook and present four portions of a Grab ‘N’ Go savoury snack with a total cost per head of 80p. Registrations of interest are open until Friday 28th February 2025 with school chefs needing to submit their entries by Friday 4th April 2025.
Gregory said: “Grab ‘N’ Go is a fundamental part of the school food service, particularly in secondary schools and academies, so we are delighted that the challenge is returning for 2025.
“LACA would like to thank SchoolGrid for their continued support of the challenge; the ideas developed by the incredible school chefs who compete are an inspiration and help us all to develop this vital aspect of the service.”
Entries will be paper judged with the best eight invited to cook off at a central location in mid-May 2025. Three finalists will be invited to the LACA Main Event on Tuesday 8th July to cook their Grab ‘N’ Go item in a competition environment to decide the winner.
The overall winner will be announced at the LACA Informal Dinner on Tuesday 8th July 2025. The winner will demonstrate their winning recipe on the LACA Live demonstration theatre at the Main Event on Wednesday 9th July. Last year’s winner Angela McCurry made veggie Caribbean pasty.
The prizes include:
- 1st prize: £500 for the winning school chef, plus a £500 set of Wüsthof professional chef’s knives donated by SchoolGrid.
- 2nd prize: £250 for the second place school chef, plus a £100 Amazon voucher donated by SchoolGrid.
- 3rd prize: £100 for the third place school chef, plus a £100 Amazon voucher donated by SchoolGrid.
The judges will award marks 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 and the variety of textures in the finished dish as well as whether it is appealing to look at.