Food Network Canada announced this week a larger slate of new sponsors for the second season of Top Chef Canada, which includes dishwasher detergent brand Finish, Shops at Don Mills and countertop brand Caesarstone.

The show begins this Monday, March 12 at 10 p.m. and will follow 16 Canadian chefs as they participate in a series of cooking challenges for the title of Top Chef Canada and a grand prize of a brand-new kitchen worth $30,000 from GE Monogram and a $100,000 cash prize from SpongeTowels.

Finish will activate its sponsorship through a $5,000 cash prize to be won by a Top Chef contestant during an episode. The brand will also launch a national four-week consumer contest that will award a winner with a dinner for six catered by one of the show’s competitors.

The brand fits naturally with the show, Stephanie Blondal, director of brand partnerships, Shaw Media tells MiC, adding that a lot of cleaning is required after the cooking challenges are completed, making it a good place to talk about the brand.

Shops at Don Mills will be used as the prime shopping location for the chefs throughout the series and Caesarstone will provide a multi-purpose countertop to be used by the contestants. The countertop brand will also create vignettes, featuring season one’s Rob Rossi, to be aired on Food Network Canada during the season.

Blondal says that the show allows sponsors to engage with the audience in a natural and unobtrusive way. She adds that when the pilot season came to a close, Shaw Media commissioned Solutions Research Group to conduct a 13-week tracking study of the show.

“The main purpose was to understand the appeal of the show, viewer engagement and most importantly key sponsors and advertiser awareness,” she explains. “From this, we learned that 91% of viewers agreed that advertisers and brands associated with the show are top Canadian brands.”