Beef processors have until June 9 to enter, to be in with a chance of winning the top prize of World’s Best Steak or even a Gold, Silver or Bronze Medal.
Since the competition began in 2015, nations including Australia, England, America and Ireland have won multiple medals, but so far the only Asian representation is a Gold Medal won by Japan two years ago.
The event is organised by Global Meat News, which like FoodNavigator-Asia is owned by William Reed Business Media.
Its deputy editor, Aidan Fortune, said: “We’ve only had one Gold Medal winner from Japan and that was in 2015 so it’s high time that we had some Asian representation on our list of winners, especially given the winning steak for the past two years was a wagyu cross.
“This shows the quality of wagyu beef so it’s time that Asian producers showcased their produce and entered to be in with a chance.”
Producers have more chances than ever to pick up an award at this year’s World Steak Challenge. As well as Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals being up for grabs, this year’s competition has two new categories, Rib Eye and Fillet, as well as Sirloin, with one these category winners being awarded World’s Best Steak. It will also be awarding the Best Grain-fed and Grass-fed entries.
Judging is blind and involves an international panel of meat scientists, master butchers, grillers and chefs, who will convene in London under the expert chairmanship of this year’s chairman, celebrated Dutch butcher Marco Peerdeman (@orangebutcher).
Each steak is judged on its own merits against internationally agreed criteria. Technical testing covers two areas: raw and cooked.
After raw analysis, steaks are cooked to a level of medium and probed to a core temperature between 50-55 degrees celsius before being allowed to rest for five minutes and then sampled. All steaks that achieve the highest Gold medal scores in the technical judging go into the second stage of judging.
Gold medal steaks are cooked on a BBQ by chefs for an agreed time and specification based on a home cooking environment and scored by a new panel of judges drawn from a wide range of nationalities and expertise to ensure diverse international tastes are accounted for.
The scores awarded at this stage for each steak will be added to the total from stage one to reach an overall score. At this point, the steak with the highest total score will be awarded the title World’s Best Steak and its producer World’s Best Steak Producer.
Fortune said: “The World Steak Challenge is about celebrating the joy and benefits of eating steak as part of a healthy balanced diet. This ultimate test of Rib Eye, Fillet and Sirloin highlights the quality and premium standard of beef production across the globe.
“Last year’s competition was, once again, incredibly close and 2017 will be no different as we cast the net even wider in the search for premium steak production.”
The deadline for entries is June 9, and for more details click here.