Christopher Bates, program director of Magnet Academy of Culinary Arts at Wekiva High School, received the 2026 Technology Award from RATIONAL USA and the Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education. The national award recognized individuals who successfully introduced technology into their culinary program.

Bates’s goal is to use food-related technology to help students find academic success in serving science on a plate. The chef does not just teach his students how to cook; he strives to educate them on how to engineer flavor and master the digital precision required in the rapidly evolving, tech-driven foodservice industry.

A few of his science and technology labs include: 

• Preserving meats by making curing chambers using humidity/temperature controllers and reptile foggers, commercial grinders, and vacuum sealers.
• Studying Maillard reactions through thermal profiling in coffee roasting using ARC roasters, ET Thermocouples, and airflow meters.
• Addressing environmental sustainability by exploring the physics of Foucault currents and energy-efficient thermal conductivity when his program transitioned from portable gas burners to induction technology. 
• Exploring atmospheric controls, thermal profiling, and energy efficiency through the addition of iCombi and iVario RATIONAL units.

The 2026 Technology Award provided Bates with a $1,000 cash prize, commemorative plaque and an expense-paid trip to a three-day Foodservice Technology Workshop at RATIONAL’s Culinary Experience Center in Rolling Meadows, Ill. Additionally, he received a complimentary registration to attend CAFÉ’s 2026 Leadership Conference held this summer in Chicago.

Click here to go back to the 2026 CAFÉ award recipients list.