Reported by: Mirjam van IJssel
May 2012
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The 35th World Congress of Chefs (WACS), held in May 2012, saw over 500 delegates from across the globe getting together in the city of Daejeon, South Korea. For five days, they discussed the range of WACS's future initiatives, from the road ahead for chef's education, to feeding the planet and more.
WACS is growing and growing fast! That was clear during the recently held 35th World Congress of Chefs, with all the new initiatives from global chef's certification programs to how chefs can get actively involved in fighting hunger across the globe. The WACS Congress has always served as an excellent meeting ground for networking among chefs and sharing experiences. But, while in the past the congress agenda used to be mainly dominated by board issues that needed to be voted upon, and interrupted from time to time by an interesting cooking demo, this congress for sure took us to a new level with some excellent speakers. What we gained in learning sessions during the congress, we somewhat lost in the quality of entertainment and foods served, with most of those sessions ranging from rather bad to bland. Congress delegates getting food poisoning was also rather embarrassing for a World Congress of Chefs. A bit comparable to a building collapsing at a World Congress of Construction Engineers, I would say. However, overall it was a successful chef's congress, where many new initiatives were launched and delegates could share experiences and learn from various excellent presentations.
For the first time around, this congress saw an international competition exhibition arena held along side the event. The competition was the biggest ever in Asia with over 50 international teams and 900 individual participants competing. Of course, the prestigious Hans Beuschkens Junior Chefs Challenge and the WACS Global Chefs Challenge were a part of the competition events, with Daniel Scott Gorman of USA taking first place in the former and Geir Magnus Svae of Norway taking first place in the latter. In all, the exhibition welcomed 350,000 visitors during the 5 days of the event.
After the official opening of the Congress, WACS President Gissur Gudmundsson gave a brief overview of the achievements of the organization over the past four years. WACS is growing and now operates out of its own headquarter office located in Paris, where WACS Director, Ragnar Fridriksson is doing an excellent job in keeping us all connected and updated with WACS developments. The organization has an eight-member board and 50 chefs serving as volunteers in different committees. Worldchefs magazine, the official publication of WACS, is in its 6th edition and gets more than 240,000 downloads per edition. By the end of this year, the WACS will launch a new website. Three new member countries were welcomed into the world organization: the Maldives, Columbia and Taiwan. WACS education recognition program for culinary schools is a great success and is already used by many schools and culinary institutes. Later this year, the education committee will launch its worldwide individual chef's certification program to give chefs across the globe access to certify themselves as professional cook or chef.
Another highlight and an unprecedented event at the WACS Congress was the Keynote Presentation of our very own Egyptian celebrity chef, Chef Osama El Sayed. His presentation "Ramadan Banquets & Traditions", not only showed the typical foods served in Ramadan, but also explained a lot about the general traditions around the Muslim holy month. He described the mental power you get from fasting, which helps you become aware that, yes, you can survive and function without starting off you day with coffee and food! He explained how fasting, a tradition which exists in many cultures around the world, has been shown to give you strength to overcome or fight possible infections, weaknesses or addictions. After his cooking demo, he laid out a whole table with food for the congress delegates to taste. Chef Essam Sayed Mohamed, Executive Chef at Hurghada Marriott Beach Resort and Chairman of the Egyptian Chefs Association's Red Sea Chefs Chapter, traveled with the Egyptian delegation and helped Chef Osama with the demo. Delegates also got a copy of Chef Osama's book Arabian Sweets, generously donated by Chef Osama and the Emirates Culinary Guild.
The Bill Gallagher Junior Chefs Forum was another notable learning experience for the young chefs. The Forum was such a success, packed with interesting topics and trips that many senior chefs started to feel they were missing out on some excellent Korean cultural food tours. Over 200 participating junior delegates had gastronomic tours to the agricultural markets and a Kimchi factory, among other outings. Junior chefs also made an afternoon presentation and a culinary show for the senior chefs at the congress, which gave them hands-on experience in public speaking and how to make a presentation.
A presentation by Chris Sandford, founder of the Ireland Culinary Ability Awards, showed the congress delegates some images of this special competition for chefs with disabilities. Since its kick off in 2005, the competition is gaining in popularity each year. The chefs are judged in accordance with the same standards as any other WACS-endorsed competition. The impressive and emotionally touching images of the competition inspired many other chefs associations to consider staging such an event in their own countries.
Away from the conference grounds at the Gapchen Waterfront Park, the chefs of the Congress joined the chefs of Daejeon city in a ground-breaking event, setting the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest ever gathering of chefs worldwide! It took some patience from participants to get the chefs all lined up, but in the end, 2111 chefs were counted to be entered as a world record. The Guinness Book of World Records, along with many other events caught the imagination of the press, which provided for excellent media coverage of this year's WACS congress.
Without a doubt, "How to Feed the Planet in the Future" was the most impressive new initiative taken on by WACS. After a roundtable, moderated by Rick Moonen, Executive Chef/Owner of RM Seafood, a declaration was signed by all the chefs at the end of the session pledging their moral responsibility. As an added source of inspiration, teleconference videos by prominent figures addressing the delegates were shown, among them, Al Gore, Former Vice-President of the USA; Olafur Ragnar, President of Iceland; Dr. Danilo Türk President of the Republic of Slovenia; and popular celebrity TV Chef Jamie Oliver. "This is not to say that we will have the right solution, but rather, it is coming together to try to make a difference!" commented WACS President Gissur Gudmundsson. Chef Rick Moonen shared his three step approach to make a difference; 1) Ask questions, 2) Adjust, and 3) Evaluate & Apply. The panel encouraged chefs to look into portion sizes, prevent wastage and understand the feed of the produce.
At the Congress, Chef Martin Kobald, recently named Hunger Advocate for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and also appointed chairman of the WACS humanitarian aid initiative Chefs Without Borders, addressed the delegates sharing his view on how chefs can make a difference. "There is a great deal of interest and goodwill among chefs to help the hungry but the challenge is how to do it," said Kobald. "It's actually very simple: what is needed is solid commitment and action." Gissur Gudmundsson, Founder of Chefs Without Borders, commented: "Chefs have an important responsibility to channel their knowledge, their skills and their voice to help the hungry. This dual appointment of Martin Kobald is a fabulous step in that direction." With more than 925 million people worldwide going hungry every year, while more than 1.3 billion tones of food go to waste in that same period, we all know that we have a problem that can and should be solved. One way that Kobald will help mobilize global awareness and support for hunger is through WFP's innovative online donation platform www.wefeedback.org, which is based on the premise that if we all do a little, we can achieve a lot.
The Egyptian Chefs Association wishes to thank the organizing committee and all who made the 35th WACS Congress a success. Special thanks go out to our visionary sponsors, leading companies in their field, El Ansary Group for Trading and El Nour for Vegetables & Fruits Supplies for their generous show of support and their financial contribution for Egypt's participation to the WACS Congress'12.
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Wishing Norway all the best with the preparation for hosting the congress in 2014, followed by Greece in 2016!
The Declaration "Feed the Planet"
"As members of the Culinary Community, it is our responsibility to use our abilities to shape the future of our planet and create positive GLOBAL change. Therefore, the 35th WACS World Congress, along with the city of Daejeon, issues the following declaration for the practice of basic principles and specific action plans for developing and disseminating food for the future to enhance the health of humankind and improve the quality of life."
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