Inside Food Network's ThreeDay Culinary Lab for High School Students and a Competition to Pitch the Next Big Show Jennifer MaasAugust 23, 2025 at 3:01 AM Food Network hosted a group of 16 rising high school students at its headquarters in New York this week for a threeday culinary lab that culminate...
- - Inside Food Network's Three-Day Culinary Lab for High School Students and a Competition to Pitch the Next Big Show
Jennifer MaasAugust 23, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Food Network hosted a group of 16 rising high school students at its headquarters in New York this week for a three-day culinary lab that culminated in a competition to pitch a new TV show concept and then a battle for which team could execute the best dishes for a mock version of the idea.
The winning idea between the four teams that were pitching: "Off the Screen," a hybrid cooking-trivia competition that would require contestants to correctly answer questions about a specific TV show or movie in order to gain perks within the challenge, or lose key items they needed to make dishes tied to the IP that was the focus of that episode.
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On the following day, New York-based Food and Finance High school rising seniors Carver Corbett Stewart (17), Zhani Russell (16), Aylin Sanchez (17) and Joy Ellington (17) were declared the victors of the competition with their "Off the Screen" dishes inspired by "A Minecraft Movie," which was selected as the IP at the center of the challenge (a Warner Bros. movie, and a solid synergy tie-in).
They made two dishes, both with connections back to the "Minecraft" franchise, which was part of the challenge: an appetizer of mushroom soup (inspired by the film's mooshrooms, the mushroom-covered cows found in Mushroom Fields biomes) and a main dish of lamb chops marinated with salt, pepper, and zaatar with chimichurri sauce and a side of red and yellow potatoes (this was a nod to a tribute the movie made to the late YouTuber and "Minecraft" player Techno Blade, who was known for carrying mutton as a food source while playing on livestreams).
The winners received JBL Bluetooth speakers with their names and the Food Network logo on them.
A collaboration between the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned Food Network and the Food Education Fund, the event gave each student selected for the opportunity hands-on training, guest speakers and workshops. The goal of the program is to expose students to career paths in the food industry, including within food media and culinary production at a time when the hospitality industry is facing an unprecedented labor shortage, leaving more than two million jobs unfilled.
"This is the second year we have done this program," Warner Bros. Discovery head of food content Betsy Ayala, who also served as one of the competition's judges, told Variety during the second day of the program Wednesday. "It was a big success last year, enough so that we had one student who changed their minor to media because of this. So they are pursuing at their culinary school a minor in media because of this program."
While the program is intended to help students who are interested in creative expression through food and media learn about the many careers that exist within the industry, and offer free training experiences to combat the high cost of culinary school, the program also gives Food Network insights into the key Gen Z and Gen Alpha demographics.
"It exposes us to the way that they're thinking and how they obtain media," Ayala said. "The younger generation, these young adults, how they obtain media and what interests them. And a lot of that is the IP stuff that will stick out. It's also seeing what they watch, because a lot of the food content that they watch is not necessarily on cable."
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