Chef Toines Smulders Of The Netherlands is The Inaugural WACS Global Chef Champion

16 May 2008 - At 3:30pm Dubai time on 15 May 2008 Netherlands chef Toines Smulders, was crowned as the inaugural WACS Global Chef. This was certainly a historical moment for WACS, as the WACS Global Chef competition is the 80-year-old organisation ’s very first and only wholly-owned competition. Chef Smulders beat challengers from six other WACS continents, who were all champions of their regional continental heats. The second and third prizes were awarded to Norway ’s Tom Victor Gausdal and USA ’s Aidan Murphy, while Singapore ’s Anderson Ho received the media judging prize. Also taking home the best food & wine pairing trophy, was team USA.

This competition took four years to materialize, and was spearheaded by the Presidium headed by Ferdinand Metz. The idea behind WACS ’ Global Chef Challenge, was to create a competition which WACS could call its own, and to showcase the highly skilled chefs of WACS from each of our continents. The two-year long process was certainly not an easy one for continents to establish. First, country heats were conducted before continental heats. Some continental directors even had a hard time persuading all of their member countries to join, given the competition ’s infancy. But it was certainly all worth the wait, as WACS members have found yet another reason to work together for the future of our beloved organization.