Ferran Adrias competition heats up

London Business School team is shortlisted in global competition A team from London Business School is among the three finalists to create a business model for Spanish chef 

Ferran Adria's El Bulli Foundation.

The world-famous chef launched the Ideas for Transformation project last year and invited students from the School, along with Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley and Spain's ESADE to come up with a business proposal for his culinary research and development centre.

In a statement on the project's website, Adria said he wanted to "encourage a different kind of thinking that is passionate and committed", and hopes that the students will "come up with truly innovative proposals that go a step further, opening up new ground and making profound changes to 21st century society".

A jury including Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, and several other distinguished figures in the field of academics, journalism and business discussed the pitches and picked the three best proposals.

All three teams have been invited to an all-inclusive four-day trip to Barcelona at the end of June, which includes a stay at Le Méridien Barcelona hotel. The finalists will be able to participate in networking events with prominent business leaders, entrepreneurs and professors. The winner is due to be announced on 27 June in Barcelona.

Adria's El Bulli restaurant, located in the village of Cala Montjoi near the Costa Brava in Spain, was voted the world's best restaurant five times before it closed its doors last year.

The restaurant, which was awarded three Michelin stars, was only open to the public for around six months each year, with Adria spending the other six months trying out new recipes.

The new El Bulli Foundation will be a spinoff of Adria's El Bulli restaurant and is due to open in 2014. It is expected to experiment with the avant-garde cooking and molecular gastronomy Adria is famous for.

The Foundation also plans to award between 15 and 20 internships every year to cooks and serving staff who work alongside the creative team, while the creative team itself will work closely with other fields such as design, art and communication.