In January, at Italian Exhibition Group’s Sigep, the Italian gelato and pastry chef team selection for the sweetest competition ever: the Gelato World Cup, which will be back in Rimini in 2024. The latest on the 2023 European gelato championship. Giancarlo Timballo (GWC): «A testing ground to excellence»
It’s competition time for Sigep 2022, the Dolce World Expo, Italian Exhibition Group’s artisan foodservice event to be held from 22nd to 26th January 2022 at Rimini Expo Centre. Indeed, Gelato d’oro is back to select the gelato and pastry chefs who will be part of the Italian team competing for one of the 12 places available at the 10th Gelato World Cup, which will return to Rimini in 2024. The latest entry in the sweetest international competition ever is the European championship, to be held for the first time in 2023, which will be an outright “elimination round” for the teams, each composed of a master gelato maker and a master pastry chef and chocolatier.
Automatic participation “by right” has therefore come to an end and a new phase of the competition has begun involving the selection of the Italian team, in collaboration with Gelato World Cup Club Italia, for the “knockout rounds” of the Gelato European Cup and, eventually, participation in the World Championship. Pastry chef selection in the Gelato Arena is scheduled for 23rd January 2022 with two trials: an artistic creation in brittle and a chocolate gelato cake. The Gelato d’Oro gelato maker selection will be divided into a semi-final, on 24th and 25th January, with two trials – the “mystery cream” and the “mystery fruit” – and a final on 26th January, with the creation of a single-portion in glass and a gastronomic gelato.
«The new European Cup,» explains Giancarlo Timballo, President of the Gelato World Cup, «accompanies the other two intercontinental selections. The fourth edition of the Latin American Cup to be held in Buenos Aires in June 2022 and the Asian Cup, at its second edition, scheduled for April 2022 in Singapore. These will be joined by another in the USA. The Gelato European Cup will make selections stricter and more professional, with teams worthy of a world competition. The teams will also have a year and a half to train and refine their technique. Passing the elimination stage will be the testing ground to excellence.»
«A new beginning for a new organisation,» says Flavia Morelli, Group Exhibition Manager for IEG’s Food & Beverage Division, «which pulls the trigger on the “road ” that will lead to Sigep 2024, where the Gelato World Cup, one of the show’s highlights, will once again be held. A competition certainly, but also one of Sigep’s highest level training events.»