The 2024 Baking Competition was a deliciously sweet event sponsored by Nestle & Bidfood. Chef’s from Columbus Coffee cafes nationwide submitted their own takes on classic baking recipes from two categories – Design a Cookie & Design a Brownie. Chefs were given two products to use in their recipes, either Nestle Milo or Nestle Caramel.

The recipes were judged on flavour profile, moistness, creative use of ingredients, how well the recipe reads & presentation.

This year’s winners for the Design a Cookie category were:

• Winner - Dan Anderson, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Invercargill

• 1st Runner Up – Sheena Albesa, Columbus Coffee Middlemore

• 2nd Runner Up – Renata Holicova, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Warkworth

This year’s winners for the Design a Brownie category were:

• Winner - Sheena Albesa, Columbus Coffee Middlemore

• 1st Runner Up – Mel Beattie, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Warkworth

• 2nd Runner Up – Melissa Tuuta, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA New Plymouth

2024 Barkers Professional Pie Competition

In 2024, we also collaborated with Barkers Professional to find the most delicious Columbus Coffee pie. All entries had to use a Barker’s Meal Base sauce when creating their recipe and the recipes were judged on presentation, cost effectiveness, pastry colour, flavour combination, texture & creativity.

Here were the entries we received from our talented chefs:

• Chicken, Leek & Kumara Pie – Teikah Jones, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Dunedin

• Corned Beef with Cheesy Mustard Sauce – Melissa Tuuta, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA New Plymouth

• Thai chicken & Spinach Pie – Consuelo Medina, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Dunedin

• Thai Green Chicken Pie – Anurag Mishra, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Ferrymead

• Thai Chicken Vege Noodle pie – Dan Anderson, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Invercargill

• Meatloaf Pie with Harissa Sauce – Melissa Tuuta, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA New Plymouth

• Mac n Cheese Pie – Nichol Brown, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA New Plymouth

• Pork & Watercress Pie – Louise Hari, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Pukekohe

• Kumara & Chorizo Harissa Pie – Felipe Segura & Marion Moreno, Columbus Coffee Ruakura

• Lamb & Chickpea Pie – Marion Moreno, Columbus Coffee Cambridge

• Creamy Style Prawn Pie – Felipe Segura, Columbus Coffee Ruakura

• Harissa Beef Pie – Hector Maturana Morales, Columbus Coffee Te Rapa

• Malaysian Curry Pie – Tenzing Lekshey, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Mt Wellington

• Thai Green Curry Pie – Hector Maturana Morales, Columbus Coffee Te Rapa

For this competition, we changed things up a bit and asked you to give us feedback on your local entries! If you tried your local chefs creation, we asked you to scan a QR code in store and let us know what you thought so we could take this into consideration when judging the recipes! We had some great feedback through.

Our winners for the competition were:

• Winner - Kumara & Chorizo Pie – Felipe Segura, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Ruakura

• 1st Runner Up – Malaysian Curry Pie – Tenzing Lekshey, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Mt Wellington

• 2nd Runner Up – Thai Chicken & Spinach Pie – Consuelo Medina, Columbus Coffee Mitre 10 MEGA Dunedin