KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaica Observer Table Talk Foods Awards Committee and Desnoes and Geddes (D&G) Foundation have teamed up in providing grants for six University of Technology Jamaica School of Hospitality & Tourism Management students.

The grants will be issued over a three -year period, amounting to $4.5 million in total.

“This has such a great legacy, the Jamaica Observer Table Talk Foods Awards Scholarship, and we are particularly keen on aligning ourselves with platforms such as this that really helped to empower young people, in particularly in the hospitality industry,” Board Director at D&G Foundation, Dianne Ashton-Smith.

Ashton-Smith said as the foundation focuses on impacting lives and enriching communities, it is important to assist hospitality students with their funding as the industry is in need of more workers.

“We see where the hospitality industry needs support in terms of customer service, etcetera, and one of our big pillars is education, and education, that aligns with our own mantra as being the parent company Red Stripe. We think it’s a great alignment and so it was a no-brainer for us to come on board,” Ashton-Smith added.

Chair of the Jamaica Observer Table Talk Foods Awards Committee Novia McDonald -Whyte, agreed.

“In the same way that Red Stripe has come aboard, can you imagine our education system if everybody were to come on board? We love to talk about people who travel to the Caribbean extensively for sun, sand and beach. We’ve got great food here, we’ve got the world’s coolest beer. In fact, over the years, you would have noticed Red Stripe fusing beer and food and the conversation around both,” said McDonald-Whyte who is also Senior Associate Editor Lifestyle and Social Content at the Observer.

She said while people travel to Jamaica to embrace its food, others should be coming to the island to further their culinary certification levels.

“So people ought to be travelling to the region to eat, and with this yes it’s jerk, yes it’s coffee, yes it’s beer, but it’s also other things as well. I want to see certification for example of people flying to Jamaica the same way we go overseas to the Cordon Bleu, chefs should be coming to the region for certification purposes. They should be coming here to get certified in oxtail, curry goat, jerk chicken, jerk pork, and we sell it,” she said.

Last year, six final-year UTech School of Hospitality and Tourism Management students received scholarships and bursaries courtesy of The Jamaica Observer Table Talk Food Awards Committee and its chair McDonald-Whyte.

-Brittny Hutchinson