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When Garner Foods first crafted the idea for a one-of-a-kind culinary showdown of top restaurant chain menu developers, there were plenty of reasons, but one that stood out from the rest. What if the competition could benefit an important cause of feeding hungry children?
Eleven years later, Garner Foods, the makers of Texas Pete® Hot Sauce, will have donated enough funds through its Texas Pete® Kitchen Hero Cook-Off to feed 1.1 million hungry children through the No Kid Hungry charity.
“Feeding the hungry has always been the priority of our family-owned company,” explains Garner Foods, Chief Executive Officer Ann Garner Riddle. “We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to feed so many hungry children through the Texas Pete® Kitchen Hero Cook-Off and want to thank the many restaurant chains who have helped us through the years. I look forward to this year’s winner and another contribution to a cause that will feed another 100,000 children who suffer from hunger.”
Garner Foods, National Accounts Manager Nikki Green (R) hands a check to feed 100,000 hungry children to Grand Champion Jessica Tomlinson of Ford’s Garage (L) and Sara Jamshidi of Share Our Strength No Kid Hungry (C) at CREATE 2022 from the Texas Pete® Kitchen Hero Cook-Off.
This year’s winner will be announced after the competition between four top chefs during the CREATE event held in Palm Springs, CA, October 1–3. Judged by other top chain chefs and executives, the Grand Champion will earn $10,000 to go to No Kid Hungry in the name of their chain. Last year, Jessica Tomlinson of Ford’s Garage earned the honor. You can watch the 2022 competition as it happened online now.
Judges and chefs gain notoriety for their restaurant chain in this national competition.
This year’s competitors range from one of the largest restaurant organizations, Inspire Brands’ Dave Woolley, to Tiffany Sawyer, Culinary Director for First Hospitality, an organization that crafts menus for feeding hundreds of thousands of hotel and restaurant guests daily, to Nate Weir, VP of Culinary at Qdoba Mexican Eats and Modern Market Eatery and Bradley Bergaus, Director of Menu Innovation for more than 900 Taco John’s across the U.S.
“Hunger in America is real,” says Sara Jamshidi of Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry program. “One in eight kids go to bed hungry, and we are out to end that in our country thanks to companies like Garner Foods and Texas Pete®.”
“We have a wonderful lineup of top chefs, and I can’t wait to see them go all out for kids and their chance to be our 2023 Texas Pete® Kitchen Hero Cook Off,” says Nikki Green, Garner Foods National Accounts Manager. “This competition has an impressive list of alumni as contestants and judges from the past decade, and we are happy that they can play an important role in this worthy cause.
If you are a menu developer for a restaurant chain and want to compete in the Texas Pete® Kitchen Hero Cook-Off held in 2024 in Nashville, contact Nikki Green. Be sure to monitor Nation’s Restaurant News or the CREATE event website and social media for news of this year’s Grand Champion. You can view the competition later via the Texas Pete® Foodservice YouTube Channel.
