More than 10 million naira will be awarded at the 2024 Lagos Cooking Competition, known as the ‘Eko Flavours Project’.
According to the State government, the Eko Flavours Project is a platform designed to highlight Lagos as the melting pot of Nigeria and to showcase the culinary skills of the state’s youth and local market vendors.
Speaking at a press conference at the Fresh Food Hub in the Idi Oro Mushin area of the state, Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems, Ms. Abiola Olusanya, stated that the initiative aims to engage youths and local vendors while emphasizing the importance of the organized market in reducing food prices.
Olusanya said the Eko Flavours project, which is in partnership with the private sector, was introduced to drive efforts to transform food markets in Lagos State as part of the initiatives by the administration of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to better shape the state’s food systems.
She said the project which is a culinary platform for food vendors and chefs to showcase their talent and interact with food enthusiasts, would be held annually, disclosing that the 2024 edition will come up in August.
“The main aim of the Eko Flavours project, aside from engaging young culinary enthusiasts and food lovers, is to showcase Lagos as a transformative state when it comes to experiences around food. We seem to have more affinity for just getting our foods inside our kitchen without understanding the logistics that go into the production side of things. And the project would also showcase the cooking skills of different chefs who reside in Lagos, as well as the cultural dishes would be displayed to the delight of residents,” she said.
The Commissioner added that chefs who must have the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA) should go to the project’s dedicated website, www.ekoflavours.lagosfreshfoodhub.com, from August 1 to register to participate in the competition.
Building Unity
The representatives of the Project Management Agency, Tantacom Group, Mrs Olufunke Adu and Mrs Jennifer Odufuwa said the idea of Lagos Flavours is to encourage unity among all the various ethnicities and tribes with their various cooking skills and dishes in Lagos as they promised that all participants would be adequately compensated with consolation prizes.
According to Adu, “The website for the competition would be open on August 1 for registration by participants, and on August 5, residents are expected to vote for their favourites, By August 9, the owners of the best 50 engaged content posted on the website would be given vouchers to buy fresh food items at the Mushin Fresh Food Hub, which they will cook. Thereafter, the best 20 chefs would be invited to the food hub to compete from where the best five would be picked for the final on August 31.”
“Just post a cooking vlog on your social media handle and tag us. The content with the highest interaction with likes and comments will be among the 50 chefs to be selected. From the 50, we will pick the best 20 who will participate in the last process for the quarterfinals and semi-final stages, where the winner, first, and second runner-up will emerge. All contenders would be judged based on taste, cleanliness, time management, and presentation,” she said
Global limelight
Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food System, Mr. Emmanuel Audu, urged many players in the food ecosystem to take full advantage of the opportunity of the Eko Flavours, which according to him has the potential to launch participants into global limelight.
The winner of the competition will be crowned Eko Flavours Champion Ambassador for one year with cash reward of N5 million, a one-year supply of free products, a N200,000 shopping voucher to shop at the Mushin Fresh Food Hub, while the first runner -up will win a N3 million cash prize, a six-month supply of products, a N100,000 shopping voucher.
And the second runner-up will go home with N1 million, a three-month supply of products, a N50,000 shopping voucher, while the fourth and fifth positions will also win cash prizes.
