In July 2021, avocado recipes invaded the Canadian social media thanks to a contest organized by the Avocados of Mexico. The goal was simple, to put creativity in the spotlight and create atypical and delicious recipes to show the versatility of the most popular fruit of the social media, the avocado.

With this activation, we wanted to give our enthusiastic and imaginative community an opportunity to express themselves by showing the countless ways to use avocados

Miguel Barcenas, marketing strategy consultant for APEAM

The social media playground for the « avochefs »

 

For this contest intended for amateurs and passionate about cooking and avocado, the avochefs had the mission to imagine and realize recipes around avocado in all its forms. One constraint… everything but guacamole!

 

Sliced, cubed, mashed, in a sauce, in a paste, for breakfast, snack or dinner, as long as the recipes were creative and appetizing, anything was allowed.

 

To participate, all you had to do was post a photo of your recipe as a comment on the contest post, tagging Avocados From Mexico – Canada and using the hashtag #avochef, on the Facebook page of media partner Tastet. Or, post the photo of his recipe in a story with the campaign hashtag and identifying the media and the brand.

A competition powered by industry references

 

The contest was organized in collaboration with media partner Tastet, a key player in the Canadian gastronomic scene.

 

This « happening » was also embodied by two Montreal chefs, Aicia Colacci, Top Chef Canada contestant and star of the Montreal Italian food scene, and Victor Soto, Mexican chef who offers some of the best tacos in the city, who also put their hands to the task and prepared video recipes around avocado to inspire the participants.

 

Thus, Tastet, the two chefs, and Les Avocats du Mexique, were the judges of this competition and deliberated around the many recipes submitted by the participants.

An appetizing list of winners

 

To make a choice among a large number of delicious proposals, 5 criteria were used: ease of preparation, flavors, use of avocados, presentation and above all, creativity.

 

Thus, 3 budding avochefs stood out in several categories among the 200 entries:

 

  • For best recipe: Dario Bivoina and his Mexican avocado and lime pie.
  • For the best presentation: Cory Welbt and his BBQ-smoked Mexican avocado.
  • And for the most original recipe: Miguel Curiel and his Mexican avocado fried tacos.

 

To ensure that as many people as possible heard about the Avochef contest and were able to participate, two bilingual newsletters covering the key points of the contest (how to get inspired and participate, the different prizes) were distributed. The press releases were thus picked up by a total of 106 media outlets.

 

The embedded links were also massively visited, redirecting readers to the Avocados From Mexico website, social networks and YouTube channel, as well as to the contest content hosted by media partner Tastet.