Chris and Cheri Redgrave are making a dairy-free gluten-free beer cheese soup for the 2025 SOUPer Bowl on Feb. 8.

The first SOUPer Bowl, held last year, featured 11 Central Oregon businesses competing for the championship title as a roomful of community members sampled soups made by each chef and cast votes on printed ballots.

“It was a very joyful event and I think I’m still smiling from last year,” said Sharon Maier-Kennelly, executive director of the High Desert Food & Farm Alliance (HDFFA).

SOUPer Bowl returns Feb. 8 to Grace First Lutheran Church, where this time, 13 chefs will compete for two titles: people’s choice and guest judge champion.

The guest judge panel is a new addition and features panelists The Bend Foodie Jon Jones, Cascade Culinary Institute’s Brian Kerr, radio personality Jim “Jimbo” Schoebel, KPOV’s Linda Orcelletto and Somewhere That’s Green’s John Kish.

Mountain Burger is the event’s reigning champion after winning for its vegan coconut corn curry stew.

And it won’t just be restaurants competing for votes, with the return of Redmond food store Schoolhouse Produce and Bend dairy alternative manufacturer Cheri’s HazelCream.

Dairy-free gluten-free beer cheese soup

Cheri’s HazelCream makes a dairy-free milk alternative with Oregon hazelnuts, delivering its product in a cherry red 1935 Chevy van.

The milk substitute was born out of necessity, said Chris Redgrave, who owns the company with his wife, Cheri.

Cheri developed food allergies later in life. The Redgraves experimented with common dairy alternatives such as almond milk, coconut milk and oat milk, but each resulted in an unwanted aftertaste.

“Our product was designed specifically to be neutral in flavor and not have an aftertaste when you cook with it,” Chris said.

For the SOUPer Bowl, the Redgraves will make a dairy-free gluten-free beer cheese soup.

“It will taste just as good and creamy as any other beer cheese soup you might run across,” Chris said.

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Roasted carrot soup with tahini and orange

Schoolhouse Produce‘s soup plays into the specialty store’s mission of sticking to flavorful in season produce, said owner Heidi Cook.

The soup was inspired by a bounty of sweet, fall-harvested carrots from Boundless Farmstead, made with roasted carrots, freshly squeezed orange juice and tahini.

“I really wanted to highlight something that was local, especially for the HDFFA. It’s important to our business that we promote locally grown as much as we can,” Cook said.

Cook is not a trained chef and said she was intimidated by the competition in the kitchen last year. But she didn’t have to think twice about competing again.

“I think it did go a long way in promoting our business and what we’re doing here in Redmond for the greater Central Oregon community,” she said.

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Access to good food

Thanks to the success of the SOUPer Bowl, HDFFA expanded its services in 2024 and has a larger expansion in the works, Maier-Kennelly said.

Last year’s event promoted community awareness of the HDFFA’s mission of growing a healthy food and farm network and making locally grown food available to all.

The nonprofit runs a fresh produce prescription program called Veggie Rx, available to anyone experiencing food insecurity who has an underlying health condition that can benefit from a diet modification and is over 18 years of age. The program is available at the Bend Farmers Market and in Warm Springs. Last year, the organization expanded Veggie Rx to Madras and it’s currently working to introduce it to Prineville and Sisters.

“It’s important to have these events where the community gets to know us. We can get to know the community and we can work together. We can’t do these kinds of programming without our community volunteers,” Maier-Kennelly said.

All leftover soup will be donated to Family Kitchen in Bend.

If You Go

What: High Desert Food & Farm Alliance second annual SOUPer Bowl

When: Two entry times, noon or 1:30 p.m. Feb. 8

Where: Grace First Lutheran Church, 2265 NW Shevlin Park Road, Bend

Cost: $25

Contact: Tickets available at hdffa.org/store