Novice chefs, gourmet cooks, and trained culinary veterans will once again gather for the Super Bowl of Food.
The World Food Championships, billed as “the world's largest food sports competition,” has been held in Dallas, Texas for the past five years, but will move to Indianapolis, Indiana this year.
Launched in 2012, the World Food Championship is a five-day event that brings together more than 300 culinary teams from around the world to compete in 12 categories.
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“We felt like we needed a Super Bowl of food,” founder Mike McLeod told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview from his Indianapolis hotel room. (See the video at the top of this article.)
Unlike the Super Bowl, which crowns the NFL champion, the winners of each category at the World Food Championship will win $10,000, advance to the final table in March, and have a chance to win the $150,000 grand prize. given.
So did Bethany Boedicker, the last cook at the last table in Bentonville, Arkansas, earlier this year.
Bethany Boddicker, pictured here, made it to the final table of the 2023 World Food Championships, which concluded in Arkansas earlier this year. (World Food Championship)
The two-time dessert winner will once again be competing in the World Food Championships, hoping to regain her crown and make it her third consecutive win in this category.
“Keep the table running as long as you can, okay?” Boedicker told Fox News Digital.
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Using the purse she won from the last World Food Championship, Boedicker quit her job and pursued her dream of opening her own bakery in Galveston, Texas, where she lives with her husband and three children.
For Boedicker, it was the difference between investing in a 401k early and taking out a small business loan.
Bethany Boedicker, a two-time World Dessert Champion from Galveston, Texas, received a ceremonial check for $150,000 after winning the 2023 World Food Championship. (World Food Championship)
“Being able to take that money and invest in yourself is great,” she said.
Boedicker is looking forward to opening Milk and Honey Baking Company early next year.
“I'm a Christian, and the Israelites were always trying to go to the land of milk and honey because it was the promised land, right?'' she said. “And this is my promised land.”
“Production, appearance, taste”
When MacLeod developed the idea for the World Food Championships about 15 years ago, he sought to create a food competition similar to “American Idol.”
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But first, MacLeod and his team needed to establish a standard by which different cuisines could be judged against each other.
“And we called it the END methodology: Execution, Look, Taste,” McLeod told FOX News Digital.
“We felt that any genre of cuisine could be judged on these three criteria, so we took the five judges' scores from these three aspects and gave them an excellent score, which is equivalent to a score out of 100. We have devised a digital system for cooking.
All contestants at the World Food Championship are judged on performance, appearance, and taste. (World Food Championship)
Similar to “American Idol,” which pairs famous musicians with amateurs, the World Food Championship brings together chefs from all walks of life and culinary backgrounds.
“That was one of the great things about our idea for this. We didn't want it to just be an upscale, chef-centric competition,” MacLeod said.
MacLeod believes part of the appeal of the World Food Championship is its accessibility.
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“If you're good at desserts, you're good at bacon, you're good at burgers and you want to prove you're the best, you have the chance to do it through our signature cooking series,” MacLeod said.
“And you also had a chance to prove that you were a good cook, because we would throw a structured dish at you and say, 'Okay, that's a great classic burger, but… Because now you have to make a patty melt.'' And everyone has to make a patty melt. ”
From Las Vegas to Indianapolis
The first World Food Championship was held in Las Vegas, where it remained for three years before moving to Orange Beach, Alabama in 2015. It moved to Dallas in 2019, but was canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and restarted in 2021.
Dallas hosted the final round of the World Food Championships last year.
Indianapolis will be the team's fourth home since 2012.
The 2023 World Food Championships were held in Dallas. This year's event will be held in Indianapolis. (World Food Championship)
“With our food sports philosophy, Indianapolis makes a lot of sense given its sports tradition and history,” McLeod said.
While Indiana's capital city is perhaps better known for its NASCAR races and sports teams like the NFL's Colts, NBA's Pacers and WNBA's Fever than its food, McLeod said Indianapolis has “a growing and great food scene.” He said that there is a “scene”.
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“You could eat out here every night for 100 days and still enjoy a three- or four-star meal without repeating the same place,” he said.
“So while it's underrated for food, it's highly rated for sports. That's why it's a great host city for the World Food Championships.”
“Long-term” thinking
Indianapolis is home for now, but given the event's history of rotation, it seems poised to return as a host city next year.
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“We always look at a move as a two-part strategy,” MacLeod said. “One is, if it's ideal and there's a phenomenal response and the community buys into it, we want to think long-term. We hope that ultimately, at least the world We want to find our place for the American Food Championships.”
But those behind the scenes at the World Food Championships are looking to the future.
Indianapolis will host the 2024 World Food Championship, but organizers' goal is to make it a global event. (Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar/USA TODAY NETWORK)
“There are great food cities across America and around the world,” McLeod said. “And we are always in discussions with other cities to potentially develop a national or regional qualifying strategy eventually.”
Mike Eaton is the chief executive officer of World Food Championship Holdings, a new organization formed about a year and a half ago. He is part of the investment group that purchased a controlling interest in the World Food Championships.
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Mr. Eaton called the event “the 'American Idol' of food,” and said his mission was to “promote it, scale it up, and make it more consumer-friendly.”
He said a development deal is underway to televise the World Food Championships in 2025.
“But the long-term plan is to make this a very global and visible food sports property and really establish ourselves as the sanctioning body for all food sports around the world,” Eaton said. spoke.
