The Chefs’ Forum – We Know Chefs Inside Out

A recent poll conducted by respected industry marketing company Jellybean revealed a fact that we have known for some time: chefs love us. Seriously, they do.

Jellybean polled 300 chefs to find out which were the most influential chef associations. The Chefs’ Forum came second behind culinary giant The British Culinary Federation. We were delighted with that but not surprised.

Bragging that chefs love us is, of course, trumpet blowing but there comes a time when it’s important for clients and prospective clients to really understand what we do well. We are now in our tenth year and both the business and the industry have moved in different directions since the beginning back in 2012.

The Chefs’ Forum is well known for working with catering colleges and chef students and has been instrumental in bringing in industry-leading chefs to teach through the Chefs’ Forum Academies – there are now eight throughout England and Wales, with more on the cards.

However, that’s not all that we do. Did you know that we work with foreign governments now? This year has seen us work with the Japanese and Brazilian governments on projects that required us to leverage our huge chef network to provide market insight.

We also worked with newly-launched Redefine Meat (Israel) to showcase the meat alternative to our network. Indeed, Redefine picked us out especially for our ability to put on events that our chefs both enjoy and look forward to.

We’ve done market insight work for some of the biggest brands in the business such as Rational, Adande, Wild Alaska Seafood and Mitchell & Cooper. We’re currently working with Wedgwood, Chef Works, Koppert Cress and Taylor UK.

High profile catering shows and food events are also asking us to be their media partners, namely the Hotel Restaurant and Catering Show (HRC), The Game Fair and The Commercial Kitchen Show – They are using our platform to reach out to chefs and act as a feature or attraction and drive attendance to their events.

We’re looking forward to being the main butchery feature at The Game Fair (Ragley Hall) at the end of the month and organising the chef demo stage at Casa Brasil this August and September for two weeks of compelling chef demos celebrating Brazilian fresh produce and ingredients.

You’d think that was enough, but we’ve begun to reach further back in the educational system to start working with schools to help our college partners with taster days to attract the next generation of chefs.

And that’s before we talk about our new content division led by our experienced editor Chandos Elletson. In our first year we produced The Great Game Guide, The Wild Alaska Seafood Guide and The Welsh Game Guide. We’re about to launch our biggest publication yet which is The Chefs’ Knowledge – a brand new and unique book for college students and junior chefs which contains everything you need to know to be a successful chef plus the top 100 dishes that every chef should know. The recipes have been provided by some of the best names in the chef world plus a foreword by James Martin.

So, that’s The Chefs’ Forum. A chefs’ association, a media partner, an event specialist and a small team of passionate people who love hospitality and chefs.