Ezulwini – A team of Nedbank Eswatini employees walked away with E5 000 after winning the NedKitchen Cook-Off Challenge held at Sharma House as part of the bank’s Africa Month celebrations.
TTPN Pot Rockets beat three other teams, Kuvutsiwe Kitchen, Umsoco and Thyme Queens, in a cook-off that gave participants three hours to prepare a three-course meal using African ingredients. Sweet potatoes and groundnuts were among the most popular ingredients chosen by the competing teams.
Celebrity judge and Eswatini Observer Acting Managing Director Mbongeni Mbingo revealed that the winning team had a slow start and recorded the lowest score in the early stages of the competition, but turned their fortunes around with a standout dessert of corn bread and fruits that became their crowning glory. 
Private Chef Brian Mohammed, who also served as a judge, noted that the teams had largely limited themselves to local ingredients when the Africa Month theme allowed for a much wider choice from across the continent.
“The theme is Africa Month so you could have used ingredients from any African country like Morocco, but it is a learning curve,” Mohammed said.
He also pointed out that the heavy reliance on sweet potatoes by most teams made the dishes feel repetitive, adding that he would have loved to see more variety in the ingredients chosen.
Nedbank Eswatini Managing Director Fikile Nkosi spoke about the significance of the event, explaining that the cook-off was a way for Nedbank staff to come together and celebrate Africa Month by cooking traditional African food.
“As we mark Africa Month across the African continent, we at Nedbank, as a pan-African bank operating across Africa, celebrate this occasion by bringing all our staff together to commemorate it. This year we decided to celebrate by cooking traditional African food. We asked all Nedbank staff participants to compete against each other by looking at which dish or cuisine they could cook, and then we brought in qualified judges to evaluate their food. Most importantly, we are proud that as Africans, we first identify as Swati, but beyond that we are Africans, and as Nedbank we work across the whole of Africa,” Nkosi said.
The panel of judges also included Café 360 Director Sindi Simelane and Nedbank Head of Audit Nkhosiphile Dlamini alongside Mohammed. The event was also attended by Chief Operations Officer Lindani Dlamini and Chief Finance Officer Nosimilo Simelane.
