Kolping Romania: Successful participation in the Cooking Olympics in Stuttgart / Germany. A team from Kolping Romania took part in this year’s International Culinary Olympics in early February. In the “Regional Teams” category, the team from Banat competed against 23 other international groups to present finger food, a five-course menu and various desserts in an appealing way. The group mastered all the challenges and was delighted to receive its certificate of participation.
Last year, Kolping Romania selected nine cooking apprentices between the ages of 16 and 21 who spent a year preparing for the Olympics in their free time. Under the supervision of head chef Florin Kiss (winner of the silver medal at the 2022 World Culinary Cup in Luxembourg), they learned new cooking techniques and tested various dishes for the Olympics. They served the test menus to the public in the Kolping restaurant, where they had to win the judgment of the guests.
Gain experiences
“Our team wants to gain experience, compete with others, develop further and prove their reliability,” says Ingrid Arvay from Kolping Romania, describing the motivation of the Kolping team. “This is an important step on the road to a successful career.”
In Stuttgart, the Romanian team was supported by the Kolping-Bildungswerk Württemberg foundation. It organized the accommodation and contributed financially to the costs. The young cooks were also allowed to use the Kolping Fellbach schools’ teaching kitchen and other rooms to put the finishing touches to the dishes for the exhibition table.
Kolping network has ‘worked’
Ingrid Arvay believes that the team has learned a lot from its participation in the contest which the young people will remember for the rest of their lives: “It’s not easy to grow together as a team, but it’s incredibly important. You must never lose sight of the goal and the values you believe in,” says Ms. Arvay. “In any case, we have experienced that the Kolping network has ‘worked’, we have met warm hospitality and fine people in Baden-Württemberg.”
The IKA (International Culinary Arts Exhibition) is the world’s oldest, largest and most prestigious professional competition for chefs and pâtissiers, which takes place every four years in Germany. The 26th IKA/Culinary Olympics 2024 took place parallel to the Intergastra trade fair in Stuttgart from February 2 to 7, 2024.
Kolping Romania promotes the training of young people in the hospitality sector. The Kolping hotel in Brasov is both a hotel and a training center. Since the hotel opened in 2006, hundreds of young adults have been trained here as chefs or waiters. Just as many trainees from a wide range of professions in the hotel, catering and housekeeping sectors have completed an internship here. In 2023, the Journeymen Residence in Timisoara also opened its doors to trainees.
