The scholarship programme now provides a comprehensive package to budding young chefs and Fuller’s catering trainer Tim Barnes has helped develop the three levels that aim to progress the skills of the chefs at each stage of their career.
Tim Barnes said: “We are very lucky at Fuller’s to be able to offer such a comprehensive course for young chefs to help them develop their careers. The Scholarship allows us to expand the way we train our chefs and by offering all three levels means that we can continue to raise the standards of the food and menus within our pubs.”
Level one of the scholarship will guide the chefs through the role of kitchen assistant to line chef and will cover areas such as food safety management, knife skills, cooking skills and food presentation. The course will last seven months and will feature skills based workshops and in-house coaching and mentoring.
Level two will focus on working from line chef to sous chef and areas of learning will include communication skills, supplier visits, methods of cookery, seasonal products, butchery and seasonality. The second level will also include a number of course work projects and will see the chef’s earning a nationally recognised qualification upon completion.
Level three will see the chefs progress from sous to head chef and will be developing competencies in people management, kitchen administration, business development and marketing. There will be course work projects to develop discipline along with eight hub house visits to improve culinary repertoire and a nationally recognised qualification at the end.
The current level three scholars, who are working as either sous or head chefs within the business, will join Brockenhurst College Salon Culinaire on 28 May to participate in a head to head cooking skills competition using fish and beer as the main ingredients.
The competition will be judged by a panel comprising of senior chefs from the Craft Guild of Chefs and Fuller’s own executive chef team. There will be a total of eleven scholarship chefs competing in the competition.