How to Organise a Cooking Contest

There’s something that unites all of us, whether it’s a group of college students or a multicultural team of employees, and that’s a passion for food. So the rule here is pretty simple: if you don’t know where to start your event-planning journey, start with food. A fun and engaging cook-off contest can be the perfect activity for a big corporate event, a student competition, or any other type of event where you want to achieve a relaxing and enjoyable atmosphere.

Why you should organise a cooking contest

If you’ve ever watched Hell’s Kitchen, you know how fascinating this rigorous competition can be, even for those who hate cooking. Here are three core reasons why you should organise cook-off contests for any audience:

• You’ll generate massive buzz. The popularity of food competitions is growing rapidly. According to the study, “On the line: Format, cooking, and competition as television values”, by Tasha Oren, the popular American television channel Food Network that had only two dish-focused reality shows in 2005 had 16 such shows in 2014.

The reason is pretty simple: food shows are no longer just about food; they are about people going head to head in fun competitions, creating unique recipes, and having a lot of fun. Who doesn’t like that? Because of this, organising a cooking contest is worth a try, whether it’s a stand-alone event or a fun activity at an event, since it can generate huge online buzz.

• You’ll save money on catering. If you get people to cook at your event, it can help you make smart use of your food budget. There’s no longer a need to waste time and money on finding the right vendor, ordering food, or managing a buffet at an event. Your guests will definitely appreciate having refreshments that their friends, colleagues, or fellow attendees prepared. To spice it up, you can set up a massive degustation where people have to evaluate the cooking skills of the participants.
• You can turn it into a learning experience. Obviously, a cooking contest for culinary school students is a casual event focused on professional growth, but it’s not only about people who see cooking as a career. Let’s say you organise a meeting for stay-at-home mums, newly married couples, or any group of people who indicated in a pre-event survey that they love cooking. In this case, a cook-off contest may be a super valuable activity.

How to organise a cooking contest

For many event planners, it’s enough to sit down and watch a few episodes of MasterChef to get inspired. However, it’s critical to understand that hosting a cook-off event means creating a story that helps you achieve your goals. This means if your goal is to boost networking at a corporate event, you should consider creative group activities. For instance, you can build several teams and encourage people to prepare team dishes in five minutes through a cooperative effort. Think about what this contest means to you and your client. Is it about rivalry? Connections building? Fun? Product promotion? What’s your goal with this contest?

Here’s a short, step-by-step guide to the organisation of cooking challenges.

Develop contest rules

Your contest rules define your story line. From equipment to dish presentation, there’s much to get on the list. Here are some common points event organisers embed in cook-off contest rules:

• The number and facilitation of workstations
• Instructions on the use of equipment
• Appropriate clothing
• Ingredients that participants are allowed to use
• Guidelines for cooperation between participants/teams
• The timeline
• Presentation of dishes
• The proceedings of contest evaluation and the announcement of the results

Choose the right theme

A cooking contest with a clear focus is always based on one juicy theme that separates it from thousands of others. The theme may relate to a dish, the rules you develop, the contest location, and more. Check out some popular cooking contest themes you can leverage based on specific target personas and formats:

School contest:

Apple theme (dish-based)

A cook-off contest for kids that is aligned with math, literacy, and other activities joined by an apple theme.

Holiday celebration contest:

Mother’s Day (based on audience)

Competition for talented and caring mums who take pride in their cooking skills.

Professional contest:

Southeast Asia Cook Off (location-based)

Cooking challenge for young talents led by a famous chef of Southern Asian restaurant, Kam McManamay.

Set up the judging process and criteria

What’s your favorite part of every Hell’s Kitchen episode? Is it the part where Gordon Ramsey steps in with hilarious (and sometimes harsh) criticism? The process of dish evaluation is a focal point at any cook-off contest for several reasons:

1. Spectators also want to participate. If there’s a public voting system that spectators can engage in, the process of judging is their time to shine.
2. Judging provides answers. Who’s going to win the main prize? Judging is the stage that gives answers to the core question for both the spectators and participants.
3. Everyone wants to win at betting. Spectators make predictions and are super excited to find out whether they were right in the end.

To make the process of contest evaluation seamless, you need to start with a framework on how to judge a cooking contest. This should involve a detailed voting plan, a set of criteria, a mechanism for votes collection, verbal critique planning, etc. It can be helpful to use a software system to automate voting and analytics, especially for large-scale contests. Concerning who the judges should be, it totally depends on your goals and contest type. If it’s a professional competition, it would be a good idea to involve food industry experts. If it’s just for fun, amateur cook-off activities, public voting can work much better in this case.

Benefit from contest promotion

A cook-off challenge can be a stunning marketing campaign. From the promotion of a new product to a restaurant opening, there’s much you can cover with an effective cooking event. But to make it work, you should ensure that your target audience actually knows it’s happening. There are many roads to take when it comes to cooking contest promotion, which include both free advertising techniques and paid tools:

• AdWords/pay-per-click advertising
• Social media promotion
• Word of mouth (for local, inhouse events)
• Blogging
• Relevant media placements
• Email marketing

Why you should use Judgify

Judgify is an awards management system that combines effective tools for managing contest applications, judging processes, public voting, and online event analytics. This is a winning solution for both stand-alone cooking competitions and multiple cook-off activities. Since it’s flexible in terms of criteria management, customised judging, and detailed reporting, it reduces an event planner’s workload substantially.

Conclusion

A cook-off challenge is always a great idea, whether it’s a contest focused on professional chefs or just amateurs. Check out the trending cooking contest ideas, and then think about how you can align them with your event to generate additional buzz, win new clients, or just entertain your audience.