Pizza chefs - time to enter annual challenge

As has become tradition, the South African edition of the challenge will once again play out at Hostex from 15-17 May 2012 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. The winner of this year's SA Global Pizza Challenge, presented in association Tabasco, will win the opportunity to travel to Melbourne, Australia, to represent South Africa in the international final of this competition.

The local competition is endorsed by the South African Chefs Association (SACA) and is open to all individual pizza makers, whether representative of a stand-alone pizzeria, restaurant, take-away outlet or hotel. Entrants are invited to submit their commercially viable recipes in five categories - chicken or meat; seafood; vegetarian; speciality or dessert and best Tabasco pizza, a new category in 2012, which carries a separate prize of R10 000 cash.

Under the auspices of SACA, a panel of chefs drawn from the Academy of Chefs, an honour society within SACA, will assess all recipes on their originality, balance, creativity and excitement factor. About 30 finalists will be selected and invited to recreate their recipes at the event in Cape Town.

The finalists will battle it out in paired cook offs over the three days of the show, culminating in the grand finale, with acclaimed local chefs making the decision on who will take the title of South African Global Pizza Challenge champion.

The judging line-up includes Martin Kobald, honorary president of SACA and global chairman of the marketing and communications committee of the World Association of Chefs Societies (WACS) and Arnold Tanzer, former continental director of the World Association of Chefs (WACS) for Africa and the Middle East and a culinary consultant for MasterChef South Africa. Other judges include members of the Academy of Chefs.

This year's sponsors include Tabasco, Hostex, Prenox, Unilever Food Solutions, Golden Cloud and Weber.

Submit entries on www.globalpizzachallenge.com.