THREE CAKE DECORATORS TO VIE AT IDDBA EVENT

ROSEANNE HARPER

MADISON, Wis. -- The International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association here has chosen three of the industry's top cake decorators to compete against each other at its Dairy-Deli-Bake 2000 seminar and expo this year in Anaheim, Calif.

The finalists selected this year to participate in the IDDBA's fifth annual Cake Decorating Challenge on-site at the Anaheim event, June 4 to 6, are Helen Benefiel from Dillon Food Stores, Hutchinson, Kan.; Dianne Days from Fuller Market Place, Chehalis, Wash.; and Debbie Kavanagh, from Publix Super Markets, Lakeland, Fla.

Kavanagh is associated with a Publix store in Largo, Fla.; and Benefiel with a Lawrence, Kan., Dillon store. Days is a bakery associate in a Fuller Market Place store in the retailer's home base of Chehalis.

Chosen from 55 entrants from supermarket companies across the United States, the three decorators will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Anaheim. They'll compete at the convention during exhibit hours so show attendees will have the opportunity to watch them at work.

In the first phase of the contest, entrants submitted color photos of their work to the IDDBA earlier this year. Via the photographs, the contestants were judged on attention to detail, neatness, creativity and their breadth of skills, according to the IDDBA.

"It's important that they can do a variety of styles, from wedding cakes to cupcakes to production-line techniques. And they need to be able to work with different types of icings," Carol Christison, IDDBA executive director, said in an earlier interview.

Many of the retailers hold decorating contests themselves prior to the IDDBA competition and then enter their own finalist in the IDDBA competition. Publix, for example, pits decorators in its divisions against each other in order to choose the finalist that will represent it in the IDDBA's Cake Decorating Challenge.

"They're actually doing the preliminary selection. When chains do that, we're getting their 'best of the best' as entrants," said an IDDBA spokeswoman.

This is the fourth year in a row that a decorator from Publix Super Markets has been chosen by the IDDBA to compete on-site at its annual convention.

The Cake Decorating Challenge will begin June 4 on the show floor, where the decorators are set up at a table side by side. The first part of the three-day challenge requires the contestants to decorate enough cakes to fill an 8-foot tiered display case and then set the case. Each contestant is also required to decorate a wedding cake and a theme cake. Then, they get to unleash their creativity on a "contestant's choice" cake.

A panel of industry experts will judge their work at the IDDBA show and then will choose the winner and second- and third-place runners-up. The winner will be announced during the last afternoon of the exposition and will be honored at the IDDBA awards dinner on the last night of the event.

Last year, the first-place winner was Amy Bagen, bigg's SuperValu, Cincinnati. Second place last year went to Maria Fuhlbrigge, Brookshire Grocery Co., Tyler, Texas; and third to Madeline Fiol, Publix Super Markets, Lakeland, Fla.