News · 19 October 2026
ProStart 2027 dates: a season plan for your best students
The dates for the 2027 National ProStart Invitational and SkillsUSA nationals are set. Here's how the season lines up for a culinary teacher's strongest students, and where two weeks in Lucerne fit for your juniors.
The 2027 National ProStart Invitational runs April 23–25, 2027, at the Marriott Baltimore Waterfront in Baltimore, Maryland.[1] Two months later, SkillsUSA holds its National Leadership & Skills Conference in Atlanta, June 21–25, 2027.[5] If you teach culinary arts, or counsel the kids who take it, those two dates shape the year for your strongest cooks. For your juniors, there's a third one worth penciling in for July.
When and where is the National ProStart Invitational 2027?
NPSI is the national final of ProStart, the two-year high-school program in culinary arts and restaurant management run by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF). ProStart reaches more than 234,000 students in 2,275 schools.[2] More than 400 of them compete at nationals each year.[1] In 2026, teams came from 47 states and the District of Columbia.[3]
Management teams pitch a new restaurant concept to industry judges and solve the problems managers face every day. Culinary teams cook a three-course meal in 60 minutes on two butane burners, with no running water and no electricity. Judges score taste, skill, teamwork, safety and sanitation.[1]
How does a team get to Baltimore?
Through its state. The event page still links the 2025 procedures and rules, and under those, each state's ProStart coordinator certifies one culinary team and one management team for nationals.[4] Teams have two to four students, plus an optional team manager. Each student gets two years at nationals at most, and they don't have to be back to back.[4]
If you're coaching, the same rules show you where the points are. Of 100 culinary points, team presentation and knife skills carry 10, work skills and organization 15, and safety and sanitation another 15. Judges check the knife cuts in the first 20 minutes of the 60-minute cook.[4]
What happens at SkillsUSA nationals in June 2027?
More than 19,000 people attend. The main event is the SkillsUSA Championships, where more than 7,000 state champions compete for national gold, silver and bronze medals.[5] Students get there the usual way: local or regional contests, then the state conference, then nationals for the state winners.[6]
In Culinary Arts, students prepare and present hot and cold food. Judges look at organization, knife skills, cooking techniques, creative presentation, sanitation and food safety, and the quality and flavor of what's on the plate. High-school competitors build their menus from a common pantry. College students work from a market basket.[7]
The 2027 season at a glance
| When | What | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Dates set by your state | State ProStart selection and SkillsUSA state conference[4][6] | Your state |
| Friday to Sunday, April 23–25, 2027 | National ProStart Invitational[1] | Baltimore, Maryland |
| Monday to Friday, June 21–25, 2027 | SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference[5] | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Sunday to Saturday, July 11–24, 2027 | BHMS Summer Camp, Culinary & Pastry Arts track[10] | Lucerne, Switzerland |
What this means for your best students
By late June, a strong competitor may have cooked against the clock in front of judges on two national stages. Then the calendar goes quiet until senior year. That's where our summer camp sits. It runs July 11 to 24, 2027, in Lucerne, 16 days after SkillsUSA nationals close, for students who are 16 to 19 on July 11, 2027.[10]
Here the class year matters more than talent. The camp is for students with one more year of high school to go, so the July 2027 camp is for the class of 2028: your current juniors. ProStart runs over two years,[2] and a student can compete at nationals twice.[4] So a junior who cooks in Baltimore in April can spend two weeks in Lucerne in July and still have a senior season ahead.
The camp isn't designed for seniors who graduate in 2027; they're ready for the degree. If one of them wants to cook in Switzerland, the next step is Year 1, the Diploma in Culinary Arts, with an intake on August 16, 2027.[9]
What would a junior do? The Culinary & Pastry Arts track spends its mornings in BHMS training kitchens with our chefs: knife skills and mise en place, plating and presentation, international flavors, chocolate and pastry, and cooking as a brigade. Afternoons are shared with the hospitality track, with excursions such as Mount Pilatus and a cruise on Lake Lucerne.[8]
You'll recognize some of those habits from the score sheets in Baltimore and Atlanta. Still, the camp isn't competition coaching. It's two weeks for a student to find out whether culinary school abroad is the plan. No cooking experience is needed, so it isn't only for your competition team.[9]
For parents, the camp costs CHF 3'900 all-inclusive: accommodation, all meals, all excursions and Zurich Airport transfers both ways.[10] That's about $4,690 at the Federal Reserve rate of 0.8308 francs per dollar for October 9, 2026.[11] Every participant also gets a CHF 3'900 scholarship voucher (the same $4,690). If the student enrolls in an eligible BHMS Bachelor program within two years, we credit the full camp fee toward first-year tuition.[9]
How do students apply, and when?
Applying is simple: the application form, filled in, plus a scan of the student's passport. Each camper needs a valid passport and health insurance. Places are limited[8] and go first come, first served, so apply early, before the spring competition season fills everyone's calendar.
Next step: share our culinary summer camp page with the juniors on your team and their parents. Keep the Diploma in Culinary Arts page for the seniors who'll graduate in 2027.