HTU Student Wins American Chicken Cooking Competition

By Norman Cooper

A third-year student of the Ho Technical University (HTU) in the Volta Region, Miss Evelyn Benyiwaa Yankson, was adjudged winner of the season four of the American Chicken Cooking Competition held in Accra Thursday.

Participants were from the Accra, Kumasi, Koforidua, Tamale, Cape Coast, Takoradi, Sunyani and Ho technical universities.

At an awards night organised in Accra to honour winners and other personalities, last Thursday, Miss Yankson's was presented with her prize, which included a fully paid six months industrial internship with the Labadi Beach Hotel and a certificate.

The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Mrs Babara Oteng-Gyasi, pledged her ministry's support for culinary arts and praised the organisers of the programme for instituting the annual event.

She said the initiative was in the right direction as it has provided the platform to celebrate excellence and professionalism in the culinary industry.

Miss Yankson also won the best creative presentation and best time conscious award categories.

She expressed gratitude to the organisers of the competition for the honour done her and promised to impact knowledge gained from the completion to become one of Ghana's leading chefs, and to also help transform the culinary industry.

For mentoring Miss Yankson, the Department of Hospitality and Tourism of the Ho Technical University was presented with a six-burner gas cooker and cake mixing machine.

The participating universities were also given assorted items and cartons of frozen chicken.

Other contestants received prizes and certificates together with hampers and cartoons of frozen chicken.

The annual completion is jointly organised by the United States of America (USA) Poultry and Eggs Export Council (USAPEEC) and the Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers (GNAPF).

The competition in its fourth year, aims among other things to making American chicken popular on Ghanaian menus, enhancing creativity among tertiary student-chefs in local and continental chicken menu preparation to boost the hospitality sector.

It is to also contribute to the development of young Ghanaian chefs as they share creative ideas on chicken recipes.

The USAPEEC seeks to promote the consumption of wholesome chicken as an essential nutritional component of human food with essential minerals and micro-nutrients for growth and wellbeing.

Eighty students, 10 each from the eight participating universities were given pre-training and from August 26 to the 29, 2019.

The organisers, USAPEEC, invited the world renowned Chef David Bonom to Ghana as the key resource person with ubiquitous chef Gary Lane of the Labadi Beach Hotel supporting him.

Judges for the competition were drawn from the hospitality industry as well as academia.

Among them were, Chef Joe Wilson Tetteh, Managing Proprietor, Wiltex Food Design and Vice president, Ghana Cheffs Association, Mrs Matilda Asamoah Appiah, Retired Senior Lecturer of repute and Mrs Phillipa Ampofo, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

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