Finalists at Tesco Chef of the Year

Congratulations must go to Year 9 students Jessica Lewis and Ellie Macauley, both 9E, who both got through to the final of Tesco Chef of the Year.

Six Academy pupils entered this Tesco-sponsored competition on Wednesday 3rd February 2016.  Their task was to create a main course dish using ingredients from a number of local primary producers used by Tescos e.g. Gilfresh, Dale Farm. An excellent range of dishes were made by pupils from Banbridge Academy and these were brought to Craigavon Civic Centre during the launch of the Mullahead Ploughing Match. The dishes were judged by Jilly Dougan from the Yellow Door and Sean Farnon from the Moody Boar Restaurant in Armagh.  The judges were very complimentary about the standard of entries and dishes made by all the entrants. The dishes made by Jessica Lewis and Ellie Macauley were selected amongst the six finalists.  They went forward to a ‘Cook in’ on the 27th February 2016 in the Tesco Marquee at the Mullahead Annual Ploughing Match

At the final Ellie and Jessica worked hard and really impressed the judges with their organisation and cooking prowess.  Cooking in a large marquee was a daunting experience and the compere, Frank Mitchell was very impressed by the standard of cooking they could display to a crowd of spectators at such a young age.  Unfortunately neither girl won but the taking part was an invaluable experience in character building as well as developing their practical cooking skills. Well done and look out for more competitions next year!