FutureChef was developed following research carried out by Springboard in 1999, which showed that while young people regarded the status of Chefs as high – comparable with professions, TV stars and judges, they did not see it as a realistic career option for them. Further investigation revealed while TV Chefs and Cookery programmes were having a positive impact on how the role of a chef is perceived, the lack of cookery on the school curriculum, the increase in eating out, and the increase in the consumption of pre-prepared meals meant that young people were not developing a passion for cooking at school or in the home and hence not considering it as a career.

With the increasing attention to issues such as obesity, health, and children’s eating habits, the importance of encouraging young people’s understanding and appreciation of cooking has never – arguably – been so critical. Coupled with the fact that cooking is no longer taught in schools as a matter of course, there are real issues to face.

At the same time, over the last 15 years, there has been phenomenal growth in the number of restaurants, hotels, bars and cafes offering an increasing range of places to eat out. While this is fantastic, the huge increase in jobs has led to the situation where chefs are now the industry’s single biggest skill shortage area and the demand for chefs at all levels has never been higher.

With little hope of getting cooking back into schools, FutureChef was introduced as a nationwide competition in a practical attempt to address these issues.

Now in our 8^th year of operation, the competition has itself grown year on year such that last year it attracted a record 7,039 competitors from 522 schools, involved 1,122 chefs – as mentors and judges. It continues to attract the involvement of some of the industry’s leading celebrity chefs – being led by Brian Turner but including Lesley Walters, Michael Caines, Angela Hartnett, Peter Gordon, to name a few.