With three new restaurants to launch over 2022-2023, highly respected New Zealand chef and restaurateur Ben Bayly credits culinary competitions for launching hospitality careers. Could his judging at the National Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge in September be the beginnings of something big for its competitors?

Ben says he’s: “a million percent behind culinary competitions with NSCC being the most important cooking competition for young people in the country.

“This cooking competition is finding our future staff and its inspiring teenagers to get across hospitality and I’m all for that.

“Competing gave me the belief, the drive that I could really make a go of it. When you do a competition like NSSCC you put yourself under a lot of pressure and you find out if you really love it or not. And enthusiasm makes it happen. If you are enthusiast about something you’ll do well.”

Ben himself won a national culinary competition as a teenager, which took the boy from Te Awamutu College to training at the Johnson & Wales University of Culinary Arts in Providence, USA, then cooking in some of the best restaurants in the world in the United States, UK, Europe and Melbourne. It literally launched a career he has never looked back on.

“The National Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge is grass roots. It’s where it all begins. My interest in cooking came at Te Awamutu College where my teacher, Mrs Letford taught me a lot of the fundamentals of cooking and it really peaked my interest.

“Colleges and high schools are the places where we think about what we are going to do with the rest of our lives. It’s a very important time, so for kids to get exposure to hospitality at high school is awesome. It’s a great job, great career and it’s so rewarding. You meet the most amazing people. You can make a heap of money and have a lot of fun. I can’t speak highly enough. I’d recommend anyone to get into hospitality. And it can all start with a cooking competition! How incredible is that?” says Ben.

Entries for the 2022 National Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge close on July 7. From there, eight regional finalists will be chosen and each will receive $1200 in prizes. They will then go on to compete in the NSSCC grand final at MIT in Auckland on September 7. In total there is more than $12,000 in prizes to be won.

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