VANCOUVER — Chef Donald Gyurkovits of Vancouver is the new president of the Canadian Culinary Federation (CCFCC).
Elected at the Federation’s Annual General Meeting held, yesterday, June 13, at Renaissance Vancouver Harourside Hotel, Gyurkovits will serve for a three-year term, increased for the first time by the membership from the previous two-year mandate requirement.
Gyurkovits, executive chef at International Herbs Ltd. in Vancouver, is vice-chair of the 2011 CCFCC National Conference now underway and president of the B.C. Chefs Association, host chapter for the Conference. A CCFCC member since 2004, Gyurkovits has served various director and officer positions.Gyurkovits told foodserviceandhospitality.com he is looking forward to his duties thanks to the work of his two immediate predecessors, Judson Simpson, Ottawa, Ont., and Bruno Marti, Delta. B.C. He will focus on building relationships with sponsors. “We’ve had wonderful sponsor support for this conference [led by Sysco],” he said. “Now we want to build that kind of two-way relationship across the country.”
Another priority, discussed extensively at the Annual General Meeting, is to raise and codify ethical and practice standards for chefs wearing the CCFCC logo on their jackets. “Chefs today are very much in the public eye, compared to as little as 10 or 15 years ago. What any one of us says or does impacts us all. We need to hold ourselves to a much higher standard,” the new CCFCC president added.
