Rugby Free Secondary chef manager appears on BBC's The One Show before she competes for national award

A school catering manager at Rugby Free Secondary School will appear on The One Show today, March 6, before she competes to win the national title of 'School Chef of the Year'.
Tanya Malone.Tanya Malone.
Tanya Malone.

Tanya Malone, who works for Warwickshire school catering company Educaterers, has already won the title of West Midlands ‘School Chef of the Year’ for two years running in the annual competition run by LACA (Lead Association for Catering in Education).

Tanya and the nine other regional winners, plus two ‘wild cards’, will appear on The One Show ahead of the national grand final, which will be held at Stratford-upon-Avon College on Thursday, March 7.

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Tanya will be interviewed about the whole competition experience, as a previous national finalist, and will appear alongside MasterChef judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode.

The Educaterers’ chef won over judges of the West Midlands final with a menu that put a ‘twist’ on the traditional school lunch.

Her ‘Twist of Fish’ main course saw Tanya take the concept of a traditional school dessert – apple crumble – and transform it into a savoury fish crumble served with spaghetti potatoes, courgettes and carrot puree.

Her winning dessert – ‘Twist of Pizza’ – took pizza, the school dinner favourite, and served it up as a sweet option, topped with fruits and crushed meringue and served with a lime jelly wedge.

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The title of LACA School Chef of the Year is the most prestigious that any school chef in the UK can hold.

Educaterers has provided meals to Rugby Free Secondary School since it opened in September 2016.

The company provides over 120,000 school meals every week to over 200 schools across Warwickshire, Birmingham and Oxfordshire.

The company said it believes strongly in developing its catering teams’ expertise and has supported Tanya’s participation in the competition.

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Terry Tredget, director of Educaterers, said: “LACA School Chef of the Year is the prize that all school caterers want to win and we are so pleased that Tanya has got through to the national final again this year after exciting the regional judges with her innovative twist on a traditional school menu.

“Our staff are our greatest strength and it would be wonderful to see an Educaterers caterer bring home that trophy, so we will all be keeping our fingers crossed for Thursday.”

For more information on Educaterers, visit www.educaterers.co.uk.