CULINARY CONTESTANTS FROM UMK TO COMPETE IN TAIWANESE HALAL FOOD, PLANT-BASED MEAT COOKING CONTEST

KUALA LUMPUR, July 29 (Bernama)-- A total of five teams, each with two students from the Faculty of Hospitality, Tourism and Wellness, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK), will compete in The Taiwanese Halal Food & Plant-based Meat Cooking Contest at Sunway Velocity Mall here this Aug 6.

The contest, organised by the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) and Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), is aimed at showcasing Taiwans' plant-based meat produces, vegetarian products, and other halal certified ingredients, with 11 products from nine Taiwanese brands to be specially flown in for the event.

According to BOFT, the plant-based meat ingredients to be featured in the competition would come from renowned halal-certified manufacturers from Taiwan, including firms like No Meating, Land Young Foods, GoldenCrops (Sungift) and Vegefarm. 

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The products to be featured would include Huikun’s Fish Here tomato tuna sauce, pasta sauce and seaweed dried fish floss, Sung Ghing Biotech’s wasabi pepper salt, K.K. Orchard’s frozen sweet potato fries, Hei Tang Dau’s brown sugar and Namchow Group Huaciang Industry’s udon noodles, it said in a statement today.

During the event, the organiser will be handing out samples of popular Taiwanese beverage brands such as Shih Chen 3:15pm’s milk tea, Hua Shi Jian’s Naturalism tea sachet, and Biozyme enzyme drink for visitors to take home.

Director of Taiwan Trade Center in Kuala Lumpur,  Eva Peng, in the same statement, stated that the organisers were delighted to work with the renowned halal cooking school from UMK and looking forward to see the creativity of the Malaysian contestants in their culinary creation using Taiwanese ingredients.

She believed such an event would go a long way to introduce more Muslim friends to Taiwans' high-quality halal food.

"The rising health awareness amongst Malaysians is one of the driving factors for the increase in popularity of plant-based meat in Malaysia,” she said, and expressed hope that the culinary competition would give the public an opportunity to learn more about the different ways to prepare plant-based meat products.

Meanwhile, one of the judges for the competition, a lecturer at UMK’s Faculty of Hospitality, Tourism and Wellness,  Abdullah Muhammed Yusoff said the competition would be UMK’s first time working with Taiwan Halal Centre.

"The university not only attaches great importance to this international exchange, but is also please to see how the plant-based meat and other innovative ingredients can inspire the creativity of the students," he said.

The winners of the competition will walk away with RM 1,000 in cash and winning students will take home high-quality pots and titanium knives from Plus Perfect.

International celebrity chef, Chef Mohd Johari Edrus (Chef Jo) has been invited to be one of the judges for the contest,  while director of economic division of the Taipei Economic & Cultural Office in Malaysia, James Chang will be presenting prizes to the winners.

More details on the competition can be obtained at https://bit.ly/3nIBDrR. 

-- BERNAMA