PepsiCo cooks up a kooky Super Bowl food competition

PepsiCo has cooked up a kooky way to bring attention to its products: It's asking top culinary students to create the ultimate Super Bowl party fare by using the company's food and beverages as ingredients.

This weekend, four student teams at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., will test a variety of recipes in a bid to win PepsiCo's "Game Day Grub Match" competition.

Each two-person team will have to use at least three PepsiCo products in their final concoction, including one food and one beverage.

PepsiCo — which produces brands such as Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Quaker and Tropicana — will provide students with ingredient options such as Mountain Dew, Tropicana juice and Doritos chips.

The competing cooks will also have access to meats, produce and dairy, among other kitchen staples.

Chef and Food Network star Anne Burrell will host the weekend cook-off. The student submissions will be judged on Sunday afternoon by chef David Burke, PepsiCo's Corporate Executive Research Chef Stephen Kalil, Culinary Institute of America senior director of food and beverage operations Waldy Malouf and New York Jets player Nick Mangold.

Two of the four culinary teams will be selected to travel to Phoenix, which will host the Feb. 1 Super Bowl XLIX.

Both teams will sample their dishes at an NFL event before the game. A winner will be selected then, and the victorious duo will earn tickets to the Big Game and a $5,000 scholarship to share.

Follow Laura Petrecca on Twitter @LauraPetrecca