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Coleg y Cymoedd has been crowned best college at a Wales-wide cooking competition for the second year running.

The college, which has a catering department at its Ystrad Mynach campus, wowed judges with the quality and skills of its students at the Welsh International Culinary Championships.

The college also won an additional 31 awards at the competition, which was held over three days at the ICC in Newport.

The championships involved a variety of individual classes such as butchery, mixology, and knife skills – as well as categories for creating dishes with Welsh produce such as beef and lamb.

Competitors were awarded gold, silver or bronze accolades after being assessed on hygiene, taste, flavour, and technical skills.

One of the college’s 13 winners was student Sophie Wilson, who scooped a number of medals alongside gold and ‘best in class’ at the Welsh heat of the Riso Gallo Young Risotto Chef Challenge – a separate competition that took place at the championships.

Following this, Sophie has been invited to represent Wales at the national risotto competition’s UK final next year.

She said: “It’s such an honour to represent Coleg y Cymoedd, my peers, and my country on a national stage for the Riso Gallo National Finals. I’m also so proud to have earned silver medals for fruit cuts and cocktail mixology, along with best in class for fruit cuts.

“These results mean the world to me and I’m so happy to have made my family and lecturers proud.”

Meanwhile, fellow student Corey Evans was also among the winners .

“I was so nervous before the competition, so I’m absolutely thrilled to have won gold and best in class for my beef dish on Wednesday,” he said.

“It’s such an intense competition so I’m so proud of my achievements and can’t thank the college and my lecturers enough for their support along the way.”

Future is ‘exceptionally bright’

Kevin Hall, competition lead at Coleg y Cymoedd, was “incredibly proud” of the students’ achievements and said: “Their dedication and commitment, practicing in their own time and stepping out of their comfort zones, has been truly remarkable.”

Mr Hall continued: “This year, we achieved a record number of entries across our three campuses, and our learners have won an astounding 26 medals and five awards, setting a new record for us.

“This success would not have been possible without the unwavering support of our dedicated lecturers, kitchen technicians, support staff, and sponsors.

“The future looks exceptionally bright for our department and learners.”