‘AI crept in, but we managed to kick it out’ – MasterChef South Africa producer

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has disrupted most industries because of the convenience brings.

Few would’ve thought the technological tool would have an impact on MasterChef South Africa.

“For the first time, we had to handle AI. We had to take those entry forms and with a very sharp eye, they had to go through each entry form to find out if it’s an AI form, where they asked AI to do the recipes for them or they did it themselves,” MasterChef South Africa Executive Producer Paul Venter said.

Venter was speaking on Thursday night at the exclusive screening of the show’s first episode of the fifth season at the cosy Durbanville Hills Winery in a chilly Cape Town.

The cooking show’s producer said the casting team was taken aback by how some of the contestants’ application forms reflected the use of AI for sourcing ingredients.  

“It’s an interesting process to see how the landscape is changing. It’s amazing how this form is the same as this form and you realise that there’s something wrong. So AI crept in, but we managed to kick it out,” averred Venter.

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From pay-tv to SABC

The show premiered on the public broadcast, SABC 2, on Saturday night after being aired on Mnet for the first four seasons.

“From a SABC perspective, we’re on a mission to reinvigorate public broadcasting and bring out the quality in terms of what our massive audiences expect,” SABC’s head of local content Lala Tuku.

“S3 [SABC 3] in fact, on Saturday night, is the best performing night on SABC 3, so MasterChef is coming into a slot that is cultivated with content,” Tuku said.

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The show still has judges who were on the show in previous seasons, Justine Drake, and Zola Nene with chef Katlego Mlambo being the new addition.

Nene said spoke glowingly of the show’s production value.

“I always say comparison is the thief of joy, but for me the production value…it’s a beautiful show. There’s been a lot of comparison of the Australian one with the South African one and everyone thinks the Australian one is the original, but the UK one is actually the original,” said the author and chef.

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“Anybody watching it will feel a sense to cry because it’s showing us in our best form. I think families are going to love it, I know my family aren’t foodies, but they are now foodies after watching MasterChef,” Nene said.

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New season shocker

There was a massive surprise waiting for the 20 contestants on the first episode of the first season.

The shocking news was that not all of them could compete in the MasterChef kitchen; instead, the first episode was their final audition, leaving five of them at risk of going home and not receiving a MasterChef apron.

After racing against the clock in the hopes of impressing the judges, the five home cooks who didn’t make the cut were rugby coach Lucas Rothman, content creator Lesego, law firm manager Robyn Africa, video producer Andrew Nye and environmentalist Ella Bella Constantinides.

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