Roses are red, and ketchupy too, when made of Doritos® chips, admiring them is what you’ll do!

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, people are making their final preparations to surprise the ones they love. This year, faculty and students from Durham College’s Advanced Baking and Pastry Arts and Culinary Management programs are helping to put a new spin on traditional flowers and chocolates by playing a key role in the Doritos® Ketchup Roses campaign.

Initially launched for Valentine’s Day in 2016, the roses, which come in both a bouquet of 12 and single stems, are tied to the limited-time release of one of Doritos most-loved flavours – Doritos Ketchup. In conjunction with the return of this flavour in 2017, the DC faculty and students were tasked with carefully handcrafting the flowers to be used in the deliciously crunchy bouquets.

“We are thrilled to be part of this fun project, which is another example of how we provide students with one-of-a-kind opportunities to build unique skills and showcase their talents, in addition to the experiences they have in our classrooms and labs,” said Tanya Heck, a chef and professor in the Advanced Baking and Pastry Arts program. “In addition to mastering the technique needed to handcraft the roses, students are gaining first-hand experience in proper food handling practices, operations and logistics management and the important art of working with clients.”

Chip fans in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have been given the opportunity to request bouquets online. Orders for Toronto and Montreal will begin their journey from DC’s W. Galen Weston Centre for Food (CFF), for distribution on Tuesday, February 14.

With hundreds of hours required to prepare the individual roses, planning and work has been underway for months under Heck, who built and led a team of four faculty and 18 students in the creation of the delicate, crunchy bouquets. From the prototyping phase, to determining the best process for both assembly and the final aesthetic, to producing the final roses for delivery on the big day, DC students are getting a unique opportunity to be part of a pop-culture phenomenon while learning and gaining real-world experience.

“This has been such a unique opportunity,” said Kristin Atwood, a student in her second semester of the Advanced Baking and Pastry Arts program. “I have been working with faculty on the project since the college was chosen to assemble the roses. It’s been incredibly rewarding to see everything come together, from developing the prototypes and refining our technique, to finalizing the bouquets. We are really looking forward to sharing our hard work with the enthusiastic and hungry Doritos Ketchup fans.”