While some team building activities might seem lackluster and others too extreme for some team members, culinary competitions are gaining popularity as a challenging exercise that builds camaraderie and simulates real-world dynamics, yet is more inclusive for all team members.

Team Building With Taste, with facilities in Atlanta and Dallas, helps build higher-performing teams by pairing team-building skills with cooking to enhance trust and collaboration. During the culinary challenge, teams have to manage their time, choose a leader, assign tasks and handle a few curve balls, as well as produce a great tasting dish. Teams present their dish to the judges (Team Building With Taste chefs) who rate each team's creation on three factors – use of time; presentation and plating; and taste. 

Both in revenue and number of participants, Team Building with Taste experienced a 52 percent growth in 2016 over 2015. Since the program began four years ago, more than 1,000 companies and 30,000 participants have enrolled in the culinary competitions.

"Businesses are often using these team building experiences as an inclusive exercise for an increasingly remote or virtual employee base, to connect managers and millennials in a multigenerational workforce or to help business teams come together after a merger or acquisition," explains Paul McKeon, Team Building With Taste CEO.

From small, local companies to Fortune 100 corporations, many team leaders have become repeat customers or have encouraged other departments in the company to schedule a Team Building With Taste event. Among the clientele in Atlanta are Coca-Cola, Home Depot, HP Enterprises, IBM, Elavon, Deloitte and the Atlanta Falcons organization. Dallas facility customers include American Airlines, PepsiCo, T-Mobile and the Dallas Cowboys organization.

"Culinary team building is more than a cooking challenge," notes McKeon. "It's a comprehensive three-hour program based on a detailed curriculum to build high performance business teams. We believe our robust challenges combined with a fun cooking experience is the reason Team Building With Taste has seen such tremendous growth."

Patrice Yunits, Client Briefing Manager, HP Enterprises agrees. "I've brought multiple groups to Team Building with Taste and have never been disappointed. Their creative approach to team building coupled with engaging chefs and exciting spontaneity has been a big hit with my internal HPE clients," Yunits reports.

The experience is also a good value. "In addition to an engaging team building exercise, our participants enjoy dinner in a private dining room and a cooking lesson for just a little more than the cost of a nice dinner out," McKeon adds. "With interest in food and cooking competitions at an all-time high because of all the TV programs on the subject, we find the concept a welcome one for companies," he concludes.