Michael Chiarello to Mentor on Supermarket Superstar

Food TV person Michael Chiarello is a mentor / executive producer a new show about...supermarkets? Supermarket Superstar, premiering July 22 on Lifetime, sounds kind of like a combination of Shark Tank and Project Runway, but with prepared foods. Every episode, entrepreneurs will pitch their artisanal whatnots and macrobiotic gluten free frozen whatevers to a panel that includes Chiarello, Mrs. Fields Bakeries founder Debbi Fields and president Chris Cornyn of Bay Area food ad agency DINE. The show will be hosted by former WWE wrestler and Dancing with the Stars contestant Stacy Kiebler.

Each week's winner will be rewarded $10,000 in prize money and $100,000 worth of product development from DINE to create professional samples of their products. For the finale, three past winners will be pitted against each other to compete for the grand prize: launching their product in A&P supermarkets and affiliated chains nationwide. For more details, check out the full press release:

Celebrity Chef, Vintner and Specialty Foods Pioneer Michael Chiarello and America's Cookie Queen Debbi Fields with Branding Expert Chris Cornyn Serve as Mentors for Aspiring Home Chefs Competing to Win Product Placement on Supermarket Shelves Nationwide

LOS ANGELES, CA (June 11, 2013) – Do you have what it takes to be the next Mrs. Fields, Orville Redenbacher or Chef Boyardee? Then you may be a Supermarket Superstar, Lifetime's all-new competition series that will give every day Americans the chance to prove they have the next great product consumers will love. Premiering Monday, July 22, at 10 ET/PT and hosted by Stacy Keibler, Supermarket Superstar gives undiscovered food entrepreneurs their chance to shine among the big brands in the highly competitive food industry. Almost anyone can cook a great meal, but this is the first food competition show that provides a platform for individuals that can change the way millions of Americans shop and eat.

Each one-hour episode of Supermarket Superstar follows three home chefs as they pitch their product concepts to titans of the food world for the opportunity to have their creation launched nationally in a major grocery chain. Chef, vintner, TV host and specialty foods pioneer Michael Chiarello; cookie mogul Debbi Fields of Mrs. Fields Cookies; and branding expert and food product visionary Chris Cornyn serve as the series' mentors to share their expertise with the contestants as they prepare their products for mass production. With the help of Chef Chiarello and research and development chef Andrew Hunter, the hopefuls must refine and perfect their recipes to impress targeted focus groups of real-life consumers to make it to the checkout line.

The surviving contestants must then create professional packaging to present their product to Tom Dahlen, the supermarket buyer for The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), who will determine the winner of each episode. The last cook standing will be rewarded $10,000 in prize money and $100,000 worth of product development from DINE Marketing and Mattson (the largest independent food and beverage innovation company in the country) to create professional samples of their products. For the Supermarket Superstar finale, three winners from the season will be invited back to compete for the grand prize by presenting their product to A&P CEO Sam Martin, with the hope their dream will be realized when their product is launched in A&P supermarkets and their affiliated chains nationwide.

Produced by The Weinstein Company (Project Runway) and All3Media America (Undercover Boss), Lifetime has ordered ten episodes of Supermarket Superstar. The series is executive produced by Bob and Harvey Weinstein (Co-Chairmen of The Weinstein Company), Meryl Poster and Barbara Schneeweiss of The Weinstein Company, Stephen Lambert, Eli Holzman and Aaron Saidman of All3Media America, Rhett Bachner of B17 Entertainment and Rob Sharenow, Gena McCarthy and Stephen H. Schwartz of Lifetime. Michael Chiarello also serves as an executive producer on the show.

Television host and actress Stacy Keibler has already had an accomplished career appearing in numerous comedy, drama, and dance projects. She can soon add entrepreneur to her list of achievements. Keibler's lifelong passion for all things health and fitness has inspired her to venture into re-educating consumers about the foods they eat. More importantly, her wish is to target young adults and kids by introducing them to a healthy and wholesome eating regiment. She is currently in the initial stages of developing an innovative and nourishing food line. Her concept is unique and one that will help encourage better eating habits for adults and children.

Michael Chiarello is an award-winning chef, Emmy®-winning television host, restaurateur, vintner, noted author and an expert in the field of culinary retail. He owns Bottega restaurant in the Napa Valley and Coqueta, a new Spanish restaurant on San Francisco's waterfront, and also created the lifestyle brand NapaStyle. This spring, Chiarello released his eighth cookbook, Live Fire. Chiarello has been honored by by Food & Wine magazine, the Culinary Institute of America and the International Fancy Food Show. Chef Chiarello's Emmy Award®-winning Food Network show Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello, began in 2003 and still airs daily. He has appeared on Iron Chef America, Top Chef Masters, Top Chef and The Next Iron Chef, and is a frequent guest of show such at The TODAY Show, Access Hollywood and CBS Early Morning.

Fields epitomizes the American dream. From America's cherished tradition of humble beginnings, she launched what has become one of the nation's most visible, successful dessert empires. Fields earned more than 25 years of entrepreneurial, operational and managerial experience in a company she built from scratch. Founder, baker, chief cookie lover and former chairman of Mrs. Fields Cookies, a $450 million company she founded in 1977, Fields has since sold her company, which is a market leader among fresh-baked cookie stores. She is the author of three cookbooks, Mrs. Fields' Cookie Book: 100 Recipes from the Kitchen of Mrs. Fields, I Love Chocolate Cookbook and Debbi Fields' Great American Desserts. She also hosted Great American Desserts, which aired nationally on public television.

Cornyn began his career at Doner Advertising working on the Klondike Ice Cream Bars, Betty Crocker Brownie Sundae and Yoplait Frozen Yogurt accounts. He continued on to become creative director and strategist at a number of advertising agencies before founding DINE, The Food & Drink Agency. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Cornyn studied at Wadham College in Oxford, England, as well as Ecole des Beaux-Arts in LaCoste, France. He is also a frequent featured speaker at industry events around the country including the Fancy Food Show and the American Association of Advertising Agencies. In 2011, Cornyn sold DINE to Mattson, which employs over 80 food professionals and has one of the richest environments in the food industry to create new food products for food companies big and small. Cornyn continues to run DINE and functions as its President under its new parent company Mattson.

Hunter is a research and development chef with 20 years experience in culinary development and product innovation. As former vice president of culinary development for Wolfgang Puck, Hunter was responsible for translating Wolfgang's signature fine dining vision into profitable fast casual menu concepts for 90+ Express and Bistro units throughout the United States, Canada and Japan. Hunter currently develops retail and consumer food products for companies including Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Niman Ranch, Martha Stewart, Kikkoman and Gourmet Garden. He serves as Executive Chef for Niman Ranch and Foodservice and Industrial Chef for Kikkoman. Before joining Wolfgang Puck, he was president of a product development company focused on developing new menu concepts and innovative recipes for chain restaurant groups, and packaged foods for retail food manufacturers. Prior to establishing his company, he managed the culinary operations for Darden Restaurants' 525-unit Olive Garden chain and developed the retail food offerings for webvan.com, an Internet grocer.

· Supermarket Superstar Press Release [TV by the Numbers]
· All Michael Chiarello Coverage on Eater [-E-]
· All Food TV Coverage on Eater [-E-]
Chiarello. [Photo: Shutterstock]