{"id":234777,"date":"2026-05-21T12:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T22:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=234777"},"modified":"2026-05-21T12:39:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T22:39:02","slug":"sweet-wins-for-uh-culinary-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2026\/05\/21\/sweet-wins-for-uh-culinary-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet wins for 东精影业<\/abbr> culinary students at Big Island Chocolate Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kapiʻolani CC<\/abbr>, <\/span> Leeward CC<\/abbr> and 东精影业<\/abbr> May College p\u00e2tisserie students at BICF<\/abbr> 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Kapiʻolani<\/span> and Leeward Community College students earned top honors at the 13th annual Big Island Chocolate Festival<\/a> culinary competition in April. The festival, held at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, showcased Hawaiʻi<\/span>-grown cacao with 22 student competitors from Kapiʻolani<\/span> CC<\/abbr><\/a>, Leeward CC<\/abbr><\/a> and University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> Maui College<\/a>. Teams created plated desserts judged on taste, texture, creativity and presentation.<\/p>\n

First place and a $2,500 scholarship went to Kapiʻolani<\/span> CC<\/abbr> students Hawkins Ko and Chase Ignacio. Leeward CC<\/abbr> students Rhiannah Ulit and Ralf Bartolome took second ($1,500), and Kapiʻolani<\/span> CC<\/abbr> students Eden Chung and Daniel Tada placed third ($1,000).<\/p>\n

Collaboration across campuses<\/h2>\n
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Plated dessert by Kapiʻolani<\/span> CC<\/abbr> student awardees Hawkins Ko and Chase Ignacio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kapiʻolani<\/span> CC<\/abbr> Chefs Sheylen Say and Daniel Wetter led collaborative efforts with other 东精影业<\/abbr> faculty and event sponsor King\u2019s Hawaiian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Chef Daniel Wetter and I have had a goal since last year to start an initiative in bringing and bridging the CC<\/abbr>\u2019s together,” Say said. “This is a beautiful beginning for that. The colleges spent the weekend together, students got to bond with each other, and we as instructors were able to start collaborating and supporting each other in our respective programs.”<\/p>\n

King\u2019s Hawaiian Innovation Pastry Chef Heather Campbell said, “Supporting Hawaiʻi<\/span> culinary students is a mission we embrace at the King\u2019s Hawaiian ʻohana<\/span>. It\u2019s an honor to contribute not only to our future culinarians, but also to support the journey of their faculty and supporters.”<\/p>\n

Judges included acclaimed pastry chef St\u00e9phane Tr\u00e9and, Executive Pastry Chef Bruce Trouyet, and Chef Maria de los Milagros Miceli.<\/p>\n

Say said, “This partnership brought together faculty, students, and industry leaders from across Hawaiʻi<\/span> to create opportunities that strengthen our entire culinary community to prepare students for their future careers.”[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_masonry_media_grid element_width=”3″ css=”” grid_id=”vc_gid:1779401731459-8357435e-7f88-6″ include=”234811,234810,234809,234808,234807,234806,234805″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Culinary students received scholarships for creating delicious cacao desserts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[184,63,65,911,660,71,60],"class_list":["post-234777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-culinary","tag-kapiolani-community-college","tag-leeward-community-college","tag-program-recognition","tag-student-recognition","tag-uh-community-colleges","tag-maui-college","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234777"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234813,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234777\/revisions\/234813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}