PepsiCo “Game Day Grub Match” Finalists Selected

PepsiCo has announced the finalists for the “Game Day Grub Match,” a culinary competition in search of the next great Super Bowl party dish: Matthew F. Johnson & Cullen Folks and Marie Taccino & Olivia DeSalvo. Each team will now compete in Arizona – the site of Super Bowl XLIX – to determine who will be named the first-ever “Game Day Grub Match” champion. The winner will be crowned on Saturday, January 31 at Taste of the NFL’s annual “Party with a Purpose.” The winning team will earn tickets to Super Bowl XLIX and receive $5,000 in scholarship money.   Each team incorporated PepsiCo food and beverage products as ingredients to create unique Super Bowl dishes:  

  “It has been impressive and inspiring to watch these promising young chefs from The Culinary Institute of America use PepsiCo products to create two amazing dishes. They challenged themselves and used our brands in innovative ways to create great flavors that would be a hit at any Super Bowl party,” says Stephen Kalil, corporate executive research chef for PepsiCo. “PepsiCo has played a starring role at Super Bowl parties for generations, and these Game Day Grub Match recipes are going to take football party menus to the next level.”   PepsiCo will allow fans to watch the teams compete and follow their road to the Super Bowl starting January 20 by visiting www.gamedaygrubmatch.com and by subscribing to PepsiCo’s Twitter channel @PepsiCo, keeping an eye on #GameDayGrubMatch.   The first round of “Game Day Grub Match” took place at The Culinary Institute of America’s Hyde Park, N.Y. campus, where four student teams were given access to a variety of products from PepsiCo’s food and beverage portfolio. They were challenged to incorporate at least three PepsiCo products into a Super Bowl inspired recipe. Food Network star and CIA alum Anne Burrell hosted the culinary competition. The dishes were evaluated by an all-star judging panel comprised of New York Jets’ Pro Bowl center Nick Mangold, James Beard Award winner and CIA alum David Burke, The Culinary Institute of America’s Senior Director of Food and Beverage Operations Waldy Malouf and PepsiCo’s Kalil.   As “Game Day Grub Match” finalists, the student teams will sample their culinary creations at various events during Super Bowl week.The two dishes will be tasted and voted on by a distinguished group of professional chefs and NFL athletes participating in this year’s Taste of the NFL “Party with a Purpose,” an annual event that rallies top chefs and NFL players to raise money in support of food banks throughout the U.S. Anne Burrell will announce the winning team during “Party with a Purpose,” and the PepsiCo Foundation will also make a $50,000 donation to Taste of the NFL to support food banks across the country.