Behind the glittering gallery of high-profile chefs so familiar from exposure on telly and print, there's an ever-keening imperative to focus on the next new wave of talent.

It behoves those who are making good in the food industry right now to look over their shoulders and put some thought into how best to help younger people desperate to play a future part in it. With the industry expanding and modernising so swiftly as the food revival continues apace, I take it it's not easy to find one single route to potential stardom. So many skills are called upon to excel these days, and attitude is often more prized than practical ability in competitions, mentoring schemes and internships alike.

I like the tone of the Young British Foodies awards 2014, which have just been launched with an entry deadline set for July. This is a nationwide search to discover and celebrate foodies most likely to shake up the food world and become the faces of the future. Once referred to as the "big boy leaders of the food world" (bad description, given the number of females coming in), the YBFs claim to be different from other award schemes by shining a spotlight on the boldest, bravest and most exciting culinary brains in the country, the ones who are redefining the way we look at food. At least, I think that just about sums it up. Interestingly, it encompasses street food and experiential categories alongside baking, meat and coffee. The Wild Game Co, founded by Scot Andy Waugh, won the 2012 Streetfood awards.

In Scotland, this year's Budding Chefs programme has also just been launched. Under this arrangement, 16 young French chefs and waiters come to Scotland to experience the national larder, meet producers and chefs, and run a pop-up restaurant in Edinburgh with their mentor, the Scots chef Craig Sandle. Presumably they'll be so impressed they'll want to come and work here at some point in future. Other schemes include UK Game Chef of the Year, run by Braehead Foods, and Seafood Chef of the Year, run by the Federation of Scottish Chefs (which also runs the annual Scottish culinary championships). The Royal Academy of Culinary Arts' Annual Awards of Excellence 2014 is also accepting entries. There's the Springboard future chef training/mentoring scheme, and the Chefs Adopt A School programme.

Even so, no Scot got to the finals of this year's Roux Scholarship, despite role models such as Andrew Fairlie (the first Roux Scholar) and the ubiquitous presence of Michel Roux Jr on our screens.

However, 23-year-old Shona Jamieson, chef at the Lodge on the Loch in Aboyne, did surprise herself by entering the Cordon Bleu Scholarship 2014 - and winning the coveted top prize, which means she will spend nine months training in classic French cuisine at the Cordon Bleu school in London, while also doing an apprenticeship with the Ritz under executive chef John Williams MBE. The farmer's daughter from Ellon, Aberdeenshire, is the first Scot to win. Jamieson says contestants were judged not so much on their practical skills as their attitude and how well they worked with others in their team. She says she is glad she had the courage to switch from her original career choice of graphic design, and is emphatic that she intends to return to work in Scotland in future.

Glasgow School of Art graduate Rosie Healey also plucked up the courage to change careers from photography to food, and is now chef de partie at Ottolenghi Notting Hill, making and plating the salads and pastries that are the celebrity chef and author's trademark. She didn't enter any competition or awards scheme, and applied direct.

Besides the "stages" or internships for young catering students undertaken by most professional restaurant kitchens, there are private, under-the-radar opportunities for young people. Martin Wishart is not alone in receiving hundreds of applications every year from young hopefuls. Though his Michelin-starred kitchens in Leith, Edinburgh city centre and Loch Lomond are staffed by experienced professionals he says it would be unwise to ignore or neglect young people and that passion should be acknowledged and encouraged. To this end he has his own apprenticeship scheme for 17/18-year-olds which, while not issuing qualifications, does ensure all-round experience by providing work on the different stations in the kitchen and visits to suppliers. This is a useful way of tailoring talent to suit his own business needs. On top of that, he works in collaboration with Cumbernauld College with catering and hospitality students, inviting them to open days at Cameron House Hotel to show them what the job involves. One of the chefs de partie came from college, started as an apprentice and is to be promoted three years on.

All of which just goes to show there's more than one way to skin a cat. On second thoughts, better make that a rabbit.