Chennai: Last year, Vikatan Group launched ‘Yummy Awards’ program thru its culinary magazine, Aval Vikatan Kitchen to recognize and celebrate the Art of Cooking, Culinary skills, Innovative Cuisines and the diverse players of the ‘Home Kitchen & Eating Out’ Ecosystem.
Aval Vikatan Kitchen, the glossy monthly magazine, has a strong content matrix of traditional, domestic, regional and international recipes, food columns, regional culinary history accompanied by photographs that offers a glimpse of ‘Home Kitchen & Eating out’ culture to its readers.
Aval Vikatan Kitchen is the brand extension of Aval Vikatan, fortnightly, the number 1 Women Magazine in Tamil with Total Readership (TR) of 13.26 Lakh (IRS 2019, Q2) of whom 79% are NCCS AB readers & 68% are women readers.
The second edition of the Aval Vikatan Kitchen Yummy Awards was recently conducted amidst glamour, glitz, fanfare and celebration in Chennai on Sunday, 22 Sept 2019. This year, there were 12 Award Categories ranging from Yummy Chef for Life Time Achievement to Best Traditional Food Joint to Best Veg Hotel to Best Non-Veg Hotel to Best Mess to Best Biryani to Best Innovation to YUmmy App to Best Youtuber. The star studded event was attended by the who’s who of Chennai including the last year awardee & South Indian Culinary Association President Dr. Chef. Damu, Comedy Actor Sathish, TV celebrities such as Anchor Erode Mahesh, Vijay Tv Gopinath, Big Boss Abhirami Iyer, Sakshi Agarwal, Mohan Vaidyanathan, Anchor Ramya Pandiyan, Vijay TV Rio etc.,
The Yummy Chef (LifeTime Achievement) Award was presented to Menu Rani Chellam by CK Renganathan, Founder & CMD of Cavinkare. Similarly, Vasan Cafe, Thiruvarur in Thanjavur District was adjudged as the best Veg hotel, UBM, Namma Veetu Saapaadu, Perundurai District was awarded the Best Non-Veg Hotel and Thonnai Biryani House was adjudged as the Best Biryani Hotel amongst other winners.
NS Easwaran, Chief Sales Officer, Vikatan Group said, ‘Food is a very evolved & involved category and Aval Vikatan Kitchen Magazine, not only has a loyal following but also created a community of readers and recipe developers, and caters to their taste buds by offering mouthwatering content and innovative cuisine that is easy to make at home. In addition, our editorial is very strong in unearthing newer concepts backed by deep insights and research, that builds engagement with our readers. We wanted to take this engagement on a larger scale and Aval Vikatan Yummy Awards is a perfect platform that connects with our Readers, Partner Brands in the kitchen appliances & food space. This year Yummy Awards is scheduled for telecast in Zee Tamil on Oct 5 (Saturday) at 5 PM and I am confident that this televised Awards show will amplify the reach for our brand partners ahead of the Diwali festival season. We have done two on-ground brand integrations, where in few celebrities blind-tasted Ruchi Magic Pickle to identify their flavour and variety in front of a large gathering. With an insight that our guests should carry the lingering tastes of our brand partner, we went the extra mile of preparing a starter delicacy made from SKM Best Eggs White Cubes by Chef of Feathers Hotel, which was devoured both by our guests & client’.
B Srinivasan, MD, Vikatan Group, said, “Aval Vikatan Kitchen Yummy Awards is the first of our Awards program for this financial year. Yummy awards has not only satiated the unmet recognition needs of the culinary ecology, be it recipe makers, home chefs, food enthusiasts, food technicians, app based foodpreneurs on the one hand or the unorganised food industry players on the other hand, but also served as connect platform for our brand partners ahead of the festive season. Im very proud of our editorial process of indepth research that spanned over 6 months which necessitated our editors to travel far & wide across TN in their quest to identify and authenticate the awardees. I would like to thank our Editorial team for their insights, rigour and research, Vikatan Connect team for putting this brilliant show and our partners for their faith and unflinching support for Aval Vikatan Kitchen Yummy Awards and our various Award properties.”
Brand Partners for Aval Vikatan Yummy Awards : Ruchi Magic Pickles from Cavinkare was the Title Sponsor of Aval Vikatan Kitchen Yummy Awards while SKM Best EGGS & Star Biryani were Powered By sponsors followed by Sowbhagya Kitchen Appliances as the Associate Sponsor, Meat & Eat, Vaya Tyffin boxes, Continental Xtra Instant Coffee were the various category partners. Yumm Awards will be telecast on Zee Tamil Television o
