NAIT Olympic Culinary Team

NAIT's 2024 student culinary team photo

About the team

NAIT’s Culinary Team’s mission is to promote local, regional, and international goodwill and camaraderie through friendly culinary competition, and to advance culinary and employability through training, teamwork, and networking.   

Students benefit through outstanding professional culinary experiences, opportunities to network and exchange ideas with culinary professionals around the world, increased culinary knowledge through international competitions and increased awareness of innovative culinary technology. 

Students are selected for the team based on: 

  • Skill 

  • Creativity 

  • Attitude 

  • Desire 

  • Dedication

  • Participation 

  • Ability to work in a team environment  

NAIT Culinary Team consists of students from not only the culinary program, but also NAIT’s Baking and Pastry Arts and Cook Apprenticeship program. Students are evaluated by a panel of staff from the Department of Culinary Arts and Professional Food Studies, compete in a cook off, maintain high academic standing, participate in Team fundraising activities and a skills competition.

Interested in joining the NAIT Culinary Team, contact us for more details

Support the team

Help send the NAIT Culinary Team to the 2028 Culinary Olympics

The NAIT Culinary Team will be sending six students and three coaches to Stuttgart, Germany for the IKA-Culinary Olympics.

The IKA/Culinary Olympics is the oldest, largest and most diverse international culinary arts competition in the world. Full of passion, professional chef teams work on the perfect interaction of ingredients, preparation, and presentation. In fair competition, new culinary trends have been created for 100 years.  In the 2020 Culinary Olympics, NAIT was the only ‘student’ team participating in their category. 

NAIT Culinary Team will be competing in the Community Catering Category. In 2020, NAIT Culinary Team was the only one of two North American teams competing in this category in which the team placed 12th out of 28 teams and winning a bronze medal.

To help provide students with more time for program work and practicing for the competition, donate today to allow the team to follow this dream. 

Donate to the NAIT Culinary Team today


Thank you to our sponsors

The NAIT Culinary Team would like to thank Blackjack's Roadhouse for their sponsorship.


Interested in becoming a sponsor? Contact Hong Chew, Culinary Arts Program Chair at hongc@nait.ca to learn how. 


Recent accomplishments

The NAIT Culinary Team has won many honours and is well-regarded among its peers. The team has earned medals in following international competitions:

Interested in joining the NAIT Culinary Team, contact us for more details
Shopping Cart Quick View
Open Shopping Cart