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Chefs vie for top spot in new Greenlandic TV food series

The goal of the television series is to market Greenland from a chef’s point of view (Photo: Leiff Josefsen)

(Sermitsiaq/News from Greenland, 4 May 2009) -- Marketing Greenland abroad will be achieved through a six part television series with a focus on culinary delights and travel

By Mads Dollerup Scheibel

On 5 May six chefs will compete to see which one will become the gastronomic detective and TV host of a six part TV series about Greenlandic food ingredients, geared towards an international market.

The selection will take place during a casting at the Danish Embassy in London. The lucky chef chosen will be taken on an extensive tour of Greenland.

The first programme in the series will be filmed in southern Greenland in August, later to be presented as part of the MIP-TV Film Festival at Cannes in November. The people behind the project hope that this will enable them to secure investors and partners for the project, ensuring the remaining five programmes are made, as well as increasing interest from TV stations.

According to the plan, the following five programmes in the series would then be made in the summer of 2010. The goal of the series is to have the celebrity chef visiting southern, eastern, northern and mid-Greenland and involving going hunting for Greenlandic raw ingredients as part of the programme. Seal, reindeer and Greenland halibut are among the food to be used, with the chef using his or her own recipes to prepare the catch.

The show’s working title is 'A Taste of Greenland' and the companies behind the project are Destination East Greenland and Ace & Ace TV Productions, which has experience in film production through such projects as Arctic Team Challenge, Greenland's Tourist and Business Council (GTE) and Branding Greenland.

It is hoped that the series will be seen by millions of viewers, and in light of this, the people behind the project are striving for the highest standards of content and production.

The chefs who are taking part in the selection all have one thing in common - they all have previous experience of working as TV hosts and/or have their own published recipe books.

English will be the main language of the programmes, with the quality intended to be at a level that will allow the programmes to be used in middle schools and high schools as teaching material for English lessons.

The distribution of the programmes when finished will be in the hands of international company TVF International, experts in selling exactly these types of programmes to television stations.

Among the panel of judges that will select the chef leading the pilot programme are representatives from Destination East Greenland, Branding Greenland and TVF.

PROGRAMME FACT FILE:
Each programme will be 26 minutes in length, with approx. the first 20 minutes devoted to travel around the local region, with the chef experiencing the nature and culture of modern Greenland in their search for raw ingredients.

Programme 1: Filmed in southern Greenland with a focus on agriculture and cod
Programme 2: Filmed in eastern Greenland with a focus on seal, mussels and seaweed
Programme 3: Filmed in Nuuk with a focus on reindeer and Red fish
Programme 4: Filmed in western Greenland in Maniitsoq, Kangerlussuaq and Sisimiut with a focus on snow crabs and musk oxen
Programme 5: Filmed in Disco bay with a focus on shrimp
Programme 6: Filmed in Northern Greenland in Uummannaq, Upernavik and Qaanaaq with a focus on Greenland Halibut