FOUR Fife College Culinary Arts and Hospitality students have won a prestigious national hospitality competition and one of them is from Lochgelly.

HNC Professional Cookery students, Terri Scott and Eilidh Smith; and HNC Hospitality students, Norrie Smith and Holly Wilkins, seen off competition from four other Scottish colleges to be named winners of Brakes Scotland’s Student Hospitality Challenge recently.

Terri, from Lochgelly, and Eilidh, from Dunfermline, will now receive a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of the team that represent Scotland at the Culinary Olympics from February 14-15 2020 in Stuttgart, Germany sponsored by the Scottish Chefs.

Hospitality students, Norrie, from Inverkeithing, and Holly, from Kirkcaldy, are also set to receive a scholarship from the Hospitality Industry Trust which will include a three-day work experience placement at a top resort hotel.

Competing as a team of two chefs and two front of house, the students had to submit a three course, four cover, menu based around the theme of ‘Scottish Food and Drink’. As part of the challenge they had to include a breakdown of the ingredients and methodology used for each course and the associated costs of each element.

Hospitality students, Norrie and Holly, also served aperitifs for the four guests using Scottish ingredients including some from Fife, wine pairings to complement the three course menu and coffee.

The competition, held at South Lanarkshire College, East Kilbride, gave students the opportunity to develop ‘real life’ catering skills such as accurate costings and the sourcing of local ingredients as well as providing a platform to showcase their culinary and hospitality skills.

Other colleges which took part in the challenge were Edinburgh College, SRUC, South Lanarkshire College and City of Glasgow College.

Terri was over the moon with the success and is looking forward to the February event and Holly Wilkins said: “This competition was a fantastic opportunity for us to work with other students in the department and be part of the overall winning team.”

Lindsay Robertson, Curriculum Manager for Culinary Arts and Hospitality, said:

“This was a great team effort from the students of professional cookery and hospitality courses. They were able to come together and develop and deliver a first class meal including drinks to the judging panel.

“The professional cookery students blew the judges away with their presentation and menu. They are ones to watch in the future. Both Terri and Eilidh are looking forward to going to the Culinary Olympics in Feb 2020.”