First Entry, First Place: Clark Neal’s Build a Better Burger Win

One entry, one turkey burger, and a first-place finish! Clark Neal won the 2026 Sutter Home Build a Better Burger contest with his Smokey Firebird—a turkey and pork chorizo burger that changed the judges’ minds about what a turkey burger could be.

For those of us who’ve had this contest on our list for years, Clark’s story is a good nudge to finally enter. His wife, Suzy, had been encouraging him to submit a recipe, and this year he gave it a shot.

Clark was kind enough to share the whole experience with Cooking Contest Central, from putting together his last-minute entry to practicing for the timed cook and hearing his name called. He also shares some practical advice for fellow contesters thinking about giving it a go.

Clark’s Build a Better Burger Adventure

Hey everyone! I am Clark Neal from Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia, and I’m the winner of the 2026 Sutter Home Winery Build a Better Burger contest. I’ve been cooking competitively for quite some time—sometimes solo, and other times as a team with my wife, Suzy. From local chili competitions to the World Food Championships, we have competed and won on quite a few occasions. I also create food related content regularly.

The Build a Better Burger contest has been on our radar for a number of years, as it is a highly regarded opportunity, and grilling is one of my strengths. Suzy has been urging me for years to submit a recipe, but this was actually the first year I took the time to create an entry. You can imagine my excitement and disbelief when I found out I made it as a finalist on my first submission.

Creating a Winning Recipe  

My entry this year is called The Smokey Firebird, named because it is a turkey burger infused with pork chorizo, green chiles, and southwestern spices. I created this burger around my wine pairing of choice, Sutter Home Pinot Grigio.

I chose my wine first and worked to build a flavor profile that complemented my wine pairing.

The burger is on the spicy side, layered with a chipotle aioli, spices and green chiles in the burger, pepper jack cheese and a fresh made pico de gallo. The heat builds as you continue to eat the burger, but I wanted to be able to grab the judges’ attention right away, knowing they wouldn’t be eating the whole burger. The recipe came about quickly, as I procrastinated and created this recipe on the last few days before the entry deadline. I wrote my ingredients down as I created my first draft of the recipe, cooked it once, and realized there wasn’t anything I could think of that I would change about the flavor profile. So, I wrote the recipe, edited my video for social media, and submitted my entry on the next to last day of the competition window in July.

Making the Cut

Fast forward a month and imagine my surprise when I checked my email in mid-August to see that I had been selected as a potential finalist! There were some forms to fill out, a background check to go through and I had to designate who my plus one would be at the in-person cook-off. Of course, I chose my wife to be my travel companion, and she too had to pass a background check. With those formalities out of the way, the preparation began in earnest, as I had about a month to prepare and practice for the competition. The selection process for the competition is an interesting one. A panel sifts through all the entries received and chooses the top 20 entries.  They use the recipe you submitted and cook all the top 20 entries and narrow their selection to the top 5 finalists. Since the contest specified your recipe must make six burgers, I didn’t have to scale up or down for the practice runs.

I knew from the contest rules that I would have exactly one hour to prepare six burgers, five for the judges and one for presentation. I practiced multiple times, timing myself and tweaking my process to utilize time while the burgers were cooking so I didn’t waste any precious bit of the clock. Believe it or not, making my pico de gallo takes longer than the actual burger prep. I got my timing down to 57 minutes, which didn’t leave me much room for error, but I felt confident in my process as the competition date rapidly approached. Since the organizers already had my recipe, and had already prepared it from ingredients they sourced, I didn’t worry too much about availability. I also wrote the recipe specifically calling for the lean fat ratio of ground turkey I used and left out any brand names in my ingredients. We were provided a list of equipment that would be at our individual grilling station as well as a list of equipment available to us in a shared space.

The Cook-Off

We flew into San Francisco, rented a car, and drove to Napa to our hotel the day before the competition. I had a cook’s meeting that afternoon at Sutter Home where I met my fellow competitors, previewed my ingredient basket, inspected the cooking stations, and learned the run of show for the next day’s event. We were able to request any changes or tweaks to our ingredients, and the staff attempted to find things we requested overnight. We found out that the cooking times would be staggered 20 minutes apart, and what order we would compete in. We also found out that the culinary staff from Sutter Home would also be preparing roughly 40 of our burgers to serve to the VIP guests in bite sized portions so they could taste the entries and vote for a People’s Choice burger.

Competition day arrived, and we arrived on site and were ushered into our designated waiting area. We were also told if the staff were able to find any of the ingredient substitutions that we requested. The judges, emcee, and VIP guests were all seated under a large event tent and the competition space was next to the tent, with each space well stocked with equipment and our own grill to cook on. Eleven a.m. came and the first person started her cook, and then I was next at 11:20 a.m. I was able to enter my space a few minutes early but couldn’t touch anything. As the emcee counted down to my start, I immediately jumped into action. Organizing my ingredients and starting my prep, and everything went as I had practiced at home. I knew I had a full hour of cooking to get all six burgers prepared and plated, and I finished in 58 minutes. Not bad for cooking in an unfamiliar space, but my practice runs really helped keep me focused on what needed to be done next. I felt my entry was as close to my original concept as I could have made it, so I felt pleased to have executed what I thought was a strong entry.

Since our turn-ins to the judges were staggered every 20 minutes, I immediately walked my entry to the event tent and the panel of judges were presented with my burger. I stood on the platform with the emcee while the judges asked me any questions they had about my burger, and then they tasted it. After tasting my entry, they offered their feedback, and I was escorted to a table that was reserved for all the competitors and their plus ones. I also was able to taste the staff prepared burgers that were coming out, which was a very nice touch. After all the entries were presented, the votes were tallied for People’s Choice. After a short time, the winner of People’s Choice was announced, then third, second and first place were called. I felt confident after I heard second place called, but of course I was shocked and overwhelmed with gratitude when I was called to the stage for first place.

The Secret Ingredient

The judges initially told me my entry was the one they were least looking forward to trying since it was a turkey burger. Turkey has a reputation for being dry, tough, and bland. I was delightfully surprised when they tasted my entry, and they changed their minds about what a turkey burger could be. My favorite piece of feedback was that they would eat my burger again, and if it were served at a restaurant, they would seek it out! They appreciated the spice level and that I was able to create a nice, thick burger that was juicy and well balanced, and that it paired extremely well with my wine of choice, Pinot Grigio. Since the current format of this competition does not allow you to compete again once you are a finalist, I felt I needed to try and make my entry stand out from what I assumed would be a majority of beef-based burger entries.

Choosing turkey as my main protein was a calculated risk to hopefully help my entry stand out. If you are thinking about entering, don’t be afraid to push the envelope of what a burger is, but also keep it simple and cohesive enough that you can recreate it in the time allowed.

Since part of the selection process is actually cooking your submitted recipe, make sure you write a concise and easy to follow recipe with enough specific information that someone could recreate your vision and have it turn out similar to your creation. I feel very fortunate to have won the 37^th edition of the Sutter Home Winery Build a Better Burger contest and had such a wonderful time during the event. This really is one of the best events I have ever had the pleasure to compete in.

The Big Check

One of my favorite parts of this trip, after winning, of course, was figuring out what to do with the giant check I was presented with as the grand prize winner. Talking with the organizers after the event, they told me no one had successfully gotten home with their check before. Even though we were over 2000 miles from home, I decided to take on that challenge, as I REALLY wanted to keep it as a memento of my competition.

Luckily, the seats folded down in our rental car and I loaded it up and headed to the airport.  You wouldn’t believe what a conversation starter a 5-foot-long check for $25,000.00 is! Lots of smiles, thumbs ups and spontaneous dialog all along the way through airport. First hurdle was getting through TSA, and they had no issue with it, but doubted I’d get it on the plane. Once we got to our gate, I asked the attendants if there was any way we could get it on the flight.  hey didn’t sound too hopeful, saying they would see what they could do. About that time, one of the pilots approached the gate, and was pointed my way. He came over and wanted to know what exactly made a burger worth $25,000.00. After a short conversation, he said the check could fly with the pilots in the cockpit, and to let the gate crew know to allow us to board with it. 

Once on board, the pilots asked me to the cockpit and I told them more about the competition and thanked them for helping me get my check home. I even got to sit in the captain’s seat of the plane and get a photo with my check.  Big thanks to all the Delta staff for being so friendly and helpful! After our flight, we navigated the airport back to our car and I am happy to say, the giant check made it home safely with us. The organizers were tickled to hear about that journey afterwards and I got yet another great memory of the whole experience. Plus I get to look at that giant check every day!

About the Author

Clark Neal, Jr, is a competitive cooking enthusiast who lives in the beautiful Northeast Georgia mountains in the small arts community of Sautee Nacoochee, Goergia. Clark is a self-taught cook and recipe developer who loves to create approachable, but elevated recipes that highlight bold flavors and unique ingredients. Co-owner of Unicoi Preserves, a small batch preserves company, and an independent content creator, Clark is affectionately known as “The Pot Stirrer” because he can’t seem to keep his hands out of the kitchen for very long! He has competed at the World Food Championships and many regional and local competitions in the past, and is always ready for the next big challenge. In addition to his kitchen skills, Clark is a husband, dog Dad, and volunteer. He has helped plan, fund, build, and maintain a multi-use, natural surface trail system with 11 completed miles of a planned 20 mile trail system for his community.

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