Students’ Cook Up A Storm With Leeds’ Trinity Kitchen Challenge

Students from four Yorkshire schools have been impressing judges with new concepts for the street food of the future. The Trinity Kitchen Challenge, now in its fifth year and organised by skills and education social enterprise, Ahead Partnership, was won by a team of five from John Smeaton Academy. The team wowed the judges with their ‘Nomlette’ idea, an environmentally conscientious brand that taps into healthy eating trends and brings a touch of class to the humble omelette.

Now in its fifth year, the challenge has been designed to bring important workplace skills to secondary school students, including business and hospitality management and marketing. This year, 44 students took part from four schools – John Smeaton Academy Parkside School, Tong Leadership Academy and Dixons Academy. The teams were asked to come up with a concept for the ‘next big thing’ in street food, and then present their ideas back to a judging panel from Trinity Kitchen and Landsec.

The General Manager at Trinity Leeds, David Maddison said: “The levels of creativity and innovation shown by students during this challenge never fails to impress. We’ve run the Trinity Kitchen Challenge since Trinity Leeds opened in 2013, welcoming hundreds of students along the way. It’s a great way to get young people involved with the world of business and allows them to express their creativity. The winning design showed some real foresight about trends within the hospitality industry, and the increasing need for outlets to think about the environment. Nomlette went down extremely well with our judges, and we can all see it working brilliantly as a concept.”

Stephanie Burras from Ahead Partnership said: “Trinity Kitchen is a really well-known venue, with a young target market. The levels of interest in this challenge have increased year-on-year, and we’d like to thank Trinity Leeds and Landsec as well as all our students and the schools they were representing for their hard work throughout the process. These types of exercise are designed to help inspire students into a chosen career, whilst exploring ways of working that might be new to them. Working with Trinity Kitchen was a really great experience for the participants, and they’ll have learnt a lot about the world of work through the challenge.”

‘Nomlette’ was developed with changing behaviours in consumer spending in-mind. Students hoped to tap into enhanced customer considerations around environmental sustainability, vegetarianism and increased awareness about nutrition. As such, the concept used recyclable materials in its packaging. There were also plans to reach wider audiences, by elevating the omelette to new levels – for example, with a lobster variation being considered.

The winning team were invited back to gain further exposure to the world of work within the marketing team at Trinity Leeds. The work experience will allow students to delve deeper into the workings of a busy shopping centre and help them to develop a greater understanding of what’s required to succeed in the world of work.