2024-2025 Virginia 4-H Food Challenge 

Rules and Guidelines Clarification 

Virginia 4-H will continue to follow the Texas 4-H Food Challenge Rules and Guidelines as written for the 2024-2025 year. It is highly recommended that you review the 2024-2025 Texas 4-H Food Challenge Rules and Guidelines as there are several new or modified rules. Below, we have highlighted a few to provide clarification. Unless noted, these rules apply to all teams: junior and senior. 

● VA Age Categories: 

● Junior team- all members must be 9 through 13 years of age as of Sept 30, 2025. Teams consist of at least three but no more than five team members. 

● Senior team - all members must be 14 through 18 years of age as of Sept 30, 2025. Teams consist of at least three but no more than four team members.  

● Mixed age group team (If used for local/district contests) - members may be 9 - 18 as of Sept 30, 2025. Teams consist of at least three but no more than five team members. * There must be at least two teams in a contest to have this division.* If only one team registers, that team will be moved to the Sr. Division. 

● Only Senior teams are eligible for state competition. A mixed age group team that moves to the senior division due to low registration, will not be eligible for state competition. 

● Attire: Each team will have the option of wearing coordinated clothing or aprons. Each team member is required to wear closed toe shoes and a hair restraint. Hair restraints consist of hair nets, hats, and/or any other type of hair restraint that covers the hair. We encourage a high, tight bun for those with long hair and then covering them with a bandana, hair net, hat, etc. Facial hair must be covered as well. 

● Supply Box: Pantry Ingredients – Each team may include in their equipment box the following “pantry” ingredients which they may use when preparing their dish if desired. There is no requirement to use these items, nor is it mandatory that teams include these in their supply box.

NEW (2024- 2025):

• Bench Scraper

• Meat Tenderizer

• Rolling Pin

● Cost Analysis: Teams will not be required to analyze the cost of the recipe, nor will this be included in the presentation or scoring of the contest.

● Preparation: Each team will create an entire dish (not a full meal) using the key ingredient and pantry items. Dishes/recipes created should include two or more servings. Teams should present the entire dish/recipe to the judges, but communicate during their presentation what an individual serving size should be. Team will be responsible for determining the number of servings their dish provides. Teams should not create side or multiple dishes with their ingredients/pantry items. 

● Gloves: Contest organizers may determine if they want participants to wear gloves for the entire contest based on hand washing station availability or use the National Food Challenge rule (as written below).

National Rule: Gloves do not have to be worn throughout the contest; however, there should always be a barrier between your hand and any food touched. A barrier includes gloves and/or cooking utensils. When wearing gloves, they must be changed between handling raw meats/seafood; handling cooked items; and ready to eat items or raw vegetables to prevent cross contamination 

● Substitution of Team Members: Only 4-H members and the number of 4-H members who qualify at unit and/or district will qualify for state. Substitutions are only allowed as a means of keeping a team active when members have been forced to drop out for unexpected reasons. Substitutes must be 4-H members, who have competed at the unit or district level. For National Competition substitutions are as follows: 

▪ 1 substitute for a 3 member team 

▪ 2 substitutes for a 4 member team 

● Presentation: 

● To earn maximum points, teams must use the 5 minute presentation to address the following areas of the presentation scorecard: Knowledge of MyPlate, Nutrition Knowledge, Food Preparation, Safety Concerns, and Serving Size. 

● At the end of 5 minutes, time will be called – additional time will not be allowed. Judges will be allowed 3 minutes to ask questions. Judges will not ask questions related to what teams should have covered during the presentation. Judges' questions will be related to general nutrition, health, chronic disease prevention or others relevant to food and nutrition. Following questions, judges will have 3 minutes to score/write comments.

● Please note: Once the 40 minutes of preparation time expires, team members may no longer communicate with each other. Team members may study their notes individually.

  Score Sheets