Sacramento, CA – This week, Sacramento’s Food Literacy Center announced Chefs Aidan Hennessey and Dennis Sydnor of Team Potato as the winners of its 2024 Veggie of the Year competition. The chef duo beat out four other local chefs with their recipe for Potato Pierogi with BBQ Potato Chips, using potatoes as a featured ingredient. The win came with a heartwarming twist: Chef Aidan is also a former food literacy student! 

The Veggie of the Year competition, which took place at the Food Literacy Center campus on September 23, is part of the organization’s annual campaign to celebrate Food Literacy Month. Established in 2012, the Food Literacy Center helped pass a statewide resolution declaring September as Food Literacy Month in California. Chef Aidan was in elementary school in 2012, and one of the nonprofit’s first students. 

“Having a former student show up as a chef at one of the restaurants we invited to participate in this year’s competition was a total surprise!” beams Food Literacy Center’s founder and CEO, Amber Stott. “When my staff handed me the final vote count and I realized he had won, a lump caught in my throat. What a beautiful, full circle moment!”

For the annual competition, five local chefs are randomly assigned a featured vegetable and are tasked with showcasing it in a creative and delicious dish that impresses the toughest judges – Food Literacy Center students! “Full circle moment,” said Chef Dennis Sydnor, Bawk!“To win the Veggie of the Year with Aidan, who is a former student of Food Literacy Center, is just amazing!”

Chef Aidan echoed the sentiment. “Love a great full circle moment with Chef Dennis Sydnor,” he said.

In addition to Chef Dennis Sydnor, other Sacramento chefs who participated include:

• Chef Ravin Patel from The 7th Street Standard
• Chef Yekaterina Balagian from The Dolce Diva
• Chef Takumi Abe from Kodaiko Ramen & Bar
• Chef Yolanda Marculescu from SCUSD Central Kitchen

The Food Literacy Center hosts other activities during Food Literacy Month to promote food literacy education in the Sacramento community, including live cooking demonstrations from competing chefs and opportunities for online fundraising.

“We know that eating healthy does not happen overnight. By hosting a fun competition like this, chefs serve as mentors to inspire kids to try new veggies,” said Amber Stott, Food Literacy Center Founder CEO & Chief Food Genius. “Today, through Chef Aidan, we saw that what we’re teaching our students really does form healthy eating habits for life.”

ABOUT FOOD LITERACY CENTER 

Food Literacy Center is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) established in 2011 in Sacramento, California, with the mission of inspiring kids to eat their vegetables. The organization provides after school programming to children in Sacramento City Unified School District and Robla Unified School District schools, teaching cooking and nutrition to improve health, economy, and the environment. The nonprofit also runs the weekly Oak Park Farmers Market, because they want everyone to eat their veggies. For more information about Food Literacy Center, visit www.foodliteracycenter.org.  

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