Sri Lankan team prepares for World Culinary Olympics
The Chefs Guild of Sri Lanka will be fielding its first ever national culinary team at the World Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt Germany.
The World Culinary Olympics, which takes place from the 5th to the 10th of October, is the world’s largest professional competition for chefs and patissiers, with this year’s event featuring over 1400 participants from more than 50 nations.
Sri Lanka’s national team will consist of Chefs Ushantha Kulathunga from Jetwing Lighthouse, Chef Manjula Wickrama from Cinnamon Grand, Chamika Perera of Hilton Colombo, Kasun Premachandra of Heritance Ahungalle and Sanjeewa Niroshan of the Grand Hotel, Nuwaraeliya.
The team will be captained by Chef Dimuthu Kumarasinghe of Heritance Ahungalle and will be managed by Gold Medalist at the Culinary Olympics, Chef Gerard Mendis.
“This is the most prestigious event in the culi- nary world and we have made a strong commitment to take part in this year’s competition. The team has worked hard and practiced intensely and we are very confident that we will bring back a gold medal, even if we have to use our personal funds to go, we will do it,” Mendis said.
Mendis stated that the team had approached the Sri Lanka Tourism Board and National carrier, Sri Lankan Airlines in the hopes of securing sponsorship however aside from discounted tickets from Sri Lankan Airlines, no response has been forthcoming from either organization.
“This is an event which will definitely contribute immensely to the hospitality industry and so it is something that needs promotion, just as the team will need all the moral support of the Sri Lankan public in the next few weeks.” Mendis said.
Mendis noted that the competition will require a budget of approximately Rs 18 million, however only approximately Rs 5.3 million in sponsorships has been granted to the team so far.