Rod Bowker - Head Judge

Rod Bowker is a highly capable experienced Consultant Chef and Food & Beverage Executive with a sound excellent knowledge of the International & National catering profession.

Except for his hobby of competition judging at prestigious Salon Culinaire Rod has now retired from the main stream, full on catering profession. His food & beverage consultancy specialised in Chef Development and Recruitment; Restaurant and Bar training; Kitchen Management; Product Development; Food Demonstrations; Concept Ideas and Chef Training; Marketing within the Hospitality Profession, Conference and Banqueting development within the hotel sector. Costing and cost control also played an important role in attracting consultancy clients.

He served a kitchen apprenticeship before moving purposely through all the recognised ranks of the elite ‘partie’ system to the position of Head Chef, Executive Chef and eventually, Divisional Executive Chef in 4- & 5-star kitchens for a large International Company. Career wise, he was fortunate to have the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed by going to culinary school at the renown & elite Ecole le Notre, Paris.

Taking his career further he entered food & beverage management and being an effective communicator, he can lead and motivate a team. He is acutely aware of business and marketing needs of the profession and has a high level of profit orientation. He was responsible for the ‘red star’ project for Forte Hotels which involved him training chefs and implementing ‘red star’ standards in selected hotels within the Forte portfolio as well as the Michelin project of putting erstwhile chef candidates into various Michelin Restaurants around France. For all this he has been rewarded by the Conseil Culinaire Francaise de Grande Bretagne with their prestigious Maitrise Escoffier Medal. Rod is a member of the Craft Guild of Chefs where he is a Master Craftsman and Fellow as well as a longstanding Chef de Cuisine member of the British Culinary Federation now currently representing the BCF as Ambassador North.

The high-quality experience and success from cookery competitions at Salon Culinaire automatically led to his popularity as an accredited judge in National & International Salons, a past time that gives him pleasure, satisfaction and a continual first hand involvement with the modern culinary world and its key participants.

Rod has judged for Stadium Experience on many occasions and at many stadia.