Rod Bowker - Head Judge
The Stadium Experience Leadership Team approached Rod to be the official Head Judge for the Matchday Hospitality Awards. The role was offered to Rod upon the strong recommendations of previous Head Judges, and the full support and encouragement of the current judging team. Rod was selected based upon his extensive knowledge and involvement in both the chef and hospitality industries, with over 40 years extensive experience and a passion for driving up standards. As well as judging matchday hospitality experiences for the awards, Rod’s role as Head Judge also includes helping to develop the judging criteria each year, organising the judging teams schedules, and validating each individual report submitted by the judging team to ensure consistency across the board. Please see Rod’s biography details below:
Biography
Rod Bowker is a highly capable experienced Consultant Chef and Food & Beverage Executive with a sound, exceptional knowledge of the International & National catering profession.
Now largely retired, Rod continues to provide occasional advice and support while dedicating his spare time to culinary judging.
His Food & Beverage consultancy specialised in chef development and recruitment, restaurant and bar training, kitchen management, product development, food demonstrations, concept development, hospitality marketing, and conference and banqueting development. Costing and cost control were also key factors 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. He was fortunate to have attended one of Frances finest culinary schools, 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 teams. He is acutely aware of business and marketing needs of the profession and has an elevated level of profit orientation.
He led Forte Hotels’ “Red Star” project, training chefs and implementing Red Star standards across selected hotels in the Forte portfolio. He also supported the Michelin project, placing promising chef candidates in Michelin restaurants throughout France. In recognition of this work, the Conseil Culinaire Français de Grande Bretagne awarded him its prestigious Maîtrise Escoffier Medal. Rod was a member of the Craft Guild of Chefs, where he became both a Master Craftsman and a Fellow, and was also a long-standing Chef de Cuisine member of the Midland Association of Chefs, now the British Culinary Federation. He currently represents the BCF as Ambassador North.
The high-quality experience and success from cookery competitions 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 for more than 10 years and remains highly enthusiastic about his role with the organisation.