School chef Andre Alto secures LACA’s Grab ‘N’ Go title
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 was given a demonstration slot on the LACA Live feature on Wednesday 9th July at 12pm in Hall One to showcase his winning dish to Main Event attendees.
During the demonstration Alto showcased his winning dish, spoke about the importance of encouraging children to try a variety of foods from around the world as well as telling audience members he was planning to enter the 2026 edition of School Chef of the Year (SCOTY).
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).