Cooking Team-Building Activities allow your team to unwind, bond, and get motivated to work better together. A great team dynamic increases productivity boosts morale, enhances communication, and brings out the imagination.
When bonds are forged, there is scope to develop management qualities and quickly identify the potential in the team.
Cooking is both an imaginative art and a science – a craft that requires a certain degree of meticulousness, diligence, and inventiveness.
It demands to focus on the objectives set out, good communication, team spirit, synergy, and most notably, having a good time.
To motivate teamwork, these activities should be facilitated by professionals who know how to get the party going and are also trained to bring out the best in team dynamics.
Best Team-Building Activities
Here’s a summary of the 10 best team-building cooking tasks facilitated by team-building experts that will get your team riled up and working like a well-oiled machine.
- Camp and Cook
- Tapas and Tablescapes
- Cook for a Cause
- Bleu on a Budget
- Ladle Away, but First, Discover
- Remote Ping Pong
- Remote Hackathon
- Remote Cook Along
- Virtual Wine Tasting, Happy Hour, or Beer Tasting
- Tour a Museum Together… Virtually
1. Camp and Cook
This one is all about problem-solving and working as a team. Groups are taken to a cozy camping spot; each team with several specific ingredients. Then, teams must concoct a three-course meal using only what they’re given.
But first, they must set up camp, make a fire, and harness their imagination to find things to use as substitutes for cookware.
Each team is given a time limit and a theme they need to follow to make things interesting. The team must nominate a leader among themselves that will designate tasks to the other team members.
With no cell phones or internet devices allowed, they’re on their own regarding what they create.
They might even choose to use things they find scavenging around the campsite, like mushrooms or berries (provided they have checked with a camp coordinator that the ingredients are not poisonous, of course).
2. Tapas and Tablescapes
Grouped into fours and tasked with a double-fisted challenge: creating sumptuous Spanish appetizers or tapas and setting an aesthetically pleasing dining table.
This activity is bound to bring out the imaginative ones in the group while tantalizing their tastebuds!
A pre-created menu is a guide for the teams, but they are always encouraged to deviate and use their imaginations as long as they stick to the theme.
To decorate their tables, they can use flowers, candles, or anything else they find.
They can even recycle unexpected items – like paint, tree branches, cardboard boxes, wood, or anything else that will make their tablescapes stand out. Teams are judged on originality, overall look, cost, and taste.
3. Cook for a Cause
Compassion and empathy are essential qualities to nurture in any team. And those are the primary qualities this activity is designed to bring out. This activity not only builds team spirit; it also cultivates compassion.
Groups will be buying ingredients, preparing a meal, and sharing it with the homeless or people in nursing homes or orphanages.
The choice of charity is theirs. The main objective is that they must come together to cook good food that translates into a good deed.
The quality of the meals will be assessed by the people they choose to feed, who will be given a survey to fill out to rate the taste, presentation, and other criteria out of 10.
4. Bleu on a Budget
French Corden Bleu’s culinary tradition marked by its universal prestige. In this activity, team members get a taste of what it means to prepare a world-class Cordon Bleu meal.
First, the team must create a budgetary blueprint they need to stick to, then use it to buy the ingredients they need to create a Michelin-star dinner, prepare it, and serve it to the judges.
The task is split into two parts and both on the budget’s frugality and the meal’s quality.
The aim is to create something incredible from next to nothing, promoting critical thinking, creativity, and teamwork. The winning team gets to have dinner prepared by a real Cordon Bleú chef!
5. Ladle Away, but First, Discover
This is an unusual take on the classic treasure hunt game. Each team divided into two further sub-teams.
One sub-team finds the ingredients and the recipe, hidden all over the venue, prompted by a set of cryptic clues.
The other team then works their magic, using the “treasures” to create a culinary experience for the team.
The fastest team to complete both the treasure hunt and cooking challenges wins. It’s a great take on competitive reasoning, lateral thought, and teamwork.
6. Remote Ping Pong Team Building
Technology has brought people closer together, even if they are on different parts of the planet. This game is a testament to that. This new version of ping pong is engaging and fun, even without a real-life table and ball.
And yes, you can enjoy it together, even if the team members are thousands of miles apart.
It’s all thanks to the wonder of virtual reality, which simulates multidimensional 4D experiences in real time. Take a look at the Oculus Table Tennis Experience here to see what we mean.
All you need to do is send your team some VR headsets and get ready for the ping pong challenge of the century, followed by good food and drinks delivered to every door.
7. Remote Team Building Hackathon
Challenge your employees to create something new and exciting with a technological twist. A hackathon is a unique, thought-provoking game that ups the competition stakes, pitting your employees against one another to hack through a digital challenge created by the company.
Options include city building, e-Commerce store creation, quantum physics challenges, and more. Get some inspiration online here.
8. Remote Cook Along
You might not naturally assume that Cooking Team-Building activity, but it can be. Cooking together is a great way to open up a more natural communication pipeline between your employees and to get them to be competitive while they’re at it.
Get a professional facilitator to set the menu and activities, supply the ingredients, and let the fun begin. The facilitator chooses the winning team based on presentation, speed, skill, and originality. And everyone gets to taste their labor when they’re done.
Even though there are many choices for Cooking Team-Building event companies, rockoly is one of our favorites, as their hosted events with tasty workshops such as Pizza from Scratch, Mexican Street Food Tacos, Cavatelli with Pesto, and loads more. After all, who doesn’t like tacos?
9. Virtual Wine Tasting, Happy Hour, or Beer Tasting
There’s nothing better than grabbing a drink after a long day at the office. And even if your team is all over the globe, they can still share a pint or two. There are many exciting options to sip on.
The metaverse even has its own virtual bars the team can hang out in. Just meet up with VR headsets and drink your own supply with your co-workers.
Miller Lite has entered the digital universe with its own metaverse tavern and virtual beer. However, it’s technically not possible to drink beer virtually.
A much simpler option that doesn’t require any VR tech is to book your Virtual Wine Tasting, Happy Hour, or Beer Tasting with your team.
You get to socialize and learn something, and the best part is, if you book through Rockoly, they’ll even fill up the fridge for you. Plus, you’ll have an expert on standby to tell you all about the great beverages you’re sampling.
Check out Rockoly for wine tasting with full wine bottles or Happy Hour cocktails that will have you going back for more.
You may not be able to afford to fly the whole team to Paris. But you can do the next best thing. Virtual reality tours took off under lockdown, and they got a lot more engaging.
This is one of the best Cooking Team-Building events for remote teams because it’ll get your team members interacting with one another as they experience the exotic or historical location you have chosen over good food.
That’s precisely what you want to promote in your employees — a sense of togetherness and camaraderie. It’s also a great way to get your team members out of the office (so to speak).
Lots of museums are now online and ready to explore – like the legendary Louvre in Paris.
Top your visit to the Louvre off with some tremendous French cooking facilitated by the experts at Rockoly.
Conclusion:
These are only 10 of the top food and drink-related Cooking Team-Building activities you can explore with Rockoly – your one-stop facilitator of all things tasty and team-orientated.
Whether you’re bringing together a workgroup, just a few pals, or even just want an excellent family outing, cooking, eating, and drinking together is a fantastic, fun way to build long-lasting bonds.
Get in touch with the creative team at Rockoly for the perfect mixture of fun, motivational tools, conversation, and professional food services, delivered straight to your door.
For more ideas Rockoly is always happy to help your team connect through Virtual Team Building Cooking Classes, Wine-Tastings or Virtual Happy Hours.
