Curry chefs in York today (Thursday, May 2) threw down the oven glove to counterparts across the UK at the launch of the city's first ever curry competition.

City of York Council is running the event as part of a long-running programme to improve the working relationship between Asian restaurant owners and the authority's environmental health team.

A group of restaurant owners, curry chefs and council officials joined Councillor Derek Smallwood, the council's executive member for the environment, to launch the competition in York this morning.

The local competition will feed into the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health's National Curry Chef 2002 competition sponsored by Cobra beer. Each of the city's 40 Asian restaurants and take-aways is getting an invitation to enter the local heat of the competition which will get its finals in July. The closing date is Wednesday, May 22.

The 2002 National Curry Chef Grand Final will be held in September 2002, at the Harrogate International Centre. The event forms part of the CIEH Annual Environmental Health Conference and Exhibition.

As well as the quality of the curry chefs' fare, the independent judges will also be scoring on their understanding of good food hygiene and safety, hazard awareness (i.e. in relation to raw and cooked foods and cooking temperatures), storage and cross contamination, cleaning and structure and personal hygiene.

The competition originally started out in Bradford in 1992 as a way of improving relations between Environmental Health Departments and the Asian restaurant proprietors.

The Asian community saw the competition as an excellent way of showing the variety and quality of curry dishes from many regions - and that experience is now being backed in York.

Restaurant owner Iqbal Chowdhury, secretary of York's Bangladeshi Centre, said, "This is a perfect opportunity for local businesses to get together to present their skills to the public and show that they are complying with hygiene and safety.

"There has been some bad publicity for businesses on television regarding poor standards and hygiene in some restaurants but this competition will demonstrate that there are many more good restaurants in York who take food safety and hygiene seriously. Local businesses are committed to working with the local authority to improve communication and this competition is a positive way forward."

Councillor Smallwood said, "The council's food and safety unit has been delighted by the general response in the city to the curry competition and we are sure that both traders and customers will benefit from this initiative.

"It promises to be an exciting addition to the city's culinary calendar and is certainly a fun way for the city's curry chefs to show off their culinary skills and the importance of food hygiene."

The background to the York competition is a year-long project for City of York Council by the authority's senior environmental health officer Anita Stone.

Anita visited all the city's curry outlets in a bid to raise awareness of the council's role and improve the service to owners and chefs. And, while the standards within York's Asian restaurants are comparatively high, Anita found a number of issues were raised. They included a lack of understanding of the role of an environmental health officer, little local information on the issues being made available in Bengali and few appropriate training opportunities.

The council has now run several courses - some of them in Bengali with the help of local and bilingual restaurateurs - and the work has culminated in the curry competition.

Anita said, "We have been very pleased so far with the response of the trade to this initiative and we are all excited about the competition.

"Obviously, places like Bradford and Manchester with its very own Curry Mile are famous for the number of restaurants and quality chefs but York has some excellent curry chefs and, hopefully, we will get one through to the finals."

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Notes for Editors: The National Curry Chef competition is widely regarded by the industry as the most important event of its kind and awards chefs for culinary excellence with impeccable standards of hygiene. 2002 sees the fifth year of this competition under the guidance of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. The competition has been steadily building its reputation as a prestigious event and is an important link between the Asian community and local authorities nationwide. The event forms part of the CIEH Annual Environmental Health Conference and attracts a great deal of media interest, including terrestrial and cable television, national and local press as well as national and local radio stations. The winners of the Regional Finals qualify for the Grand Final of National Curry Chef 2002. The finals this year will be held in September 2002, at the Harrogate International Centre. The event forms part of the CIEH Annual Environmental Health Conference and Exhibition. The 2001 final was won by Ranjeet Singh, head chef of Passage to India restaurant in Heston, Middlesex. The win clinched him the title of CIEH Curry Chef of the Year for the second year running beating some tough competition at the event's national final at the Bournemouth International Centre. Ranjeet, who has competed in the event for the past four years and reached the top three finalists every year cooked up a tasty traditional northern Indian inspired dish of Tandoori King Prawn Masala and Tawa vegetables with onion kulcha and pudina paratha. Further information at www.curry-chef.com and www.cieh.org.uk/