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The initial judging round takes place this week for LACA’s School Chef of the Year (SCOTY) competition 2014, which will aim to find the best school kitchen operator in the country.

LACA chair Anne Bull said: “With each year setting yet another new precedent for the next competition, LACA School Chef of the Year continues to represent a positive way of communicating the benefits of supporting a high quality school meals service in order to help safeguard the health of the next generation.

“Parents and the wider community should be reassured that our talented front line staff in schools not only prepare tasty, innovative and creative dishes to tempt the taste buds of discerning children and young people but also nutritious school meals that can make a major contribution towards altering eating habits, improving diets and decreasing obesity levels.

“Exciting times lie ahead for the service, as we embark on the implementation of the recommendations contained within the new School Food Plan that was launched in July.

“The plan’s content should act as a new impetus for every school’s food and beverage service throughout England.”

Organised annually and sponsored by Maggi from Nestlé Professional, the 2014 competition has drawn registrations from all 10 LACA regions.

The names of those qualifying from the first stage will be announced at the end the month. They will go through to the 10 regional finals to be held around Britain in the early part of 2014.  The national final is scheduled for May 21st 2014.

SCOTY, which has been organised annually for nearly two decades, aims to show the high quality of school meals to parents and the important contribution they can make, not only to the health and wellbeing of their children but also their physical and educational attainment.

The competition tests the preparation, cooking, creativity and presentation skills of school chefs to the test.

Each entrant is required to produce, in just one and a half hours, a healthy balanced two-course meal comprising of a main course and dessert that would appeal to eleven year olds in school. A maximum of £1.60p is allowed for the cost of a single meal (i.e. main course and dessert) for one child.

Competition rules require recipes to reflect the global influences on school meals and the ethnic and cultural mix of a school’s pupil population. With this in mind, sponsor Maggi at Nestlé Professional has included an extensive selection of its products in the competition basket to help contestants.

These include Maggi Liquid Concentrated Fonds, such as Asian Liquid Concentrated Fond, as well as Coconut Milk Powder, Devil’s Jam, and Rich & Rustic Tomato Sauce. Also included are Maggi Original Vegetarian Gravy, Maggi Mashed Potato Flakes, Maggi Béchamel Sauce, Docello Crème Brûlée Mix and Docello Panna Cotta Mix.

Competitors must use at least two Maggi products in their main course and any Nestlé product can be used in their dessert.

Chair of the judging panel for all of the regional finals, as well as the 2014 national final, will be Justin Clarke, food development chef for Maggi at Nestlé Professional.

The judging panels for each regional final will include a professional local chef, an education catering professional (Jacqui Webb, LACA), a leading dietician (Jasmine Challis, British Dietetic Association) and a year 6 boy and girl from a school near the venue of each regional final.

LACA School Chef of the Year 2013 (Corinne Du Preez from Berkshire) will be invited to sit as a judge at the national final.

Head of food at Nestlé Professional, Susan Gregory, added: “There’s little wonder that school dinners are such an emotive subject:  the health and wellbeing of the UK’s children is at stake.

“Media reports tend to focus on the negative stories about products such as Turkey Twizzlers but this betrays the full and real picture.  We simply never hear enough about the positive work carried out by so many school chefs who actually produce excellent results.

“It is through initiatives like LACA School Chef of the Year sponsored by Maggi that we can celebrate and showcase the talent, passion and achievements of the people who feed our nation’s children healthy, nutritious and tasty meals on a limited budget day in, day out.

“Good luck to all of this year’s contestants.”