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Ever wonder how the food in TV cooking competitions actually tastes? An ambitious new Food Network Canada program promises to let viewers buy, sample and vote for the products contestants create on TV.
Recipe to Riches, which premieres Oct. 19, is food TV's answer to popular talent competitions such as American Idol. Similar to Idol, contestants must impress home audiences as well as a panel of industry experts, including Laura Calder, host of cooking show French Food at Home, Tony Chapman, founder and chief executive officer of the advertising agency Capital C, and Dana McCauley, culinary director of frozen food company Janes Family Foods.
In a Canada-wide search earlier this year, the expert panel selected 21 home cooks to face off in various categories, from appetizers and entrées to desserts and frozen treats.
The winning recipes from each category are developed into a mass-market product, under the President's Choice brand at retail giant Loblaws. After each episode is aired, that product will be rolled out at Loblaws stores across the country, and viewers can try it for themselves. Once the winners of all the categories have been announced, viewers can vote online for their favourite. The winner of the finale receives a grand prize of $250,000.
The show, produced on such a large scale, is a first for food television, says Barb Williams, senior vice-president of content at Shaw Media, which operates Food Network Canada.
"When you sit at home and watch singing competitions, it's really easy to go, 'I think that person was the best singer,' " she says. "But how the heck do you look at a bunch of cookies on TV and know which one tastes best?"
According to Allan Lindsay, vice-president of brand marketing for Loblaw Cos. Ltd., the contestants' home recipes not only had to be commercialized on a mass scale, they needed to have an appropriate shelf life and be distributed through the supply chain – all within compressed timelines compared with a typical product development cycle.
Will Recipe to Riches do for the cook-next-door what American Idol did for Kelly Clarkson? Maybe not. But if the formula for the show proves successful, viewers may see further merging of televised food competitions and retail.