Food waste scandal: China stripped of fried rice world record

Beijing, Oct 26: A group of 300 people who cooked four tonnes of fried rice in China's Yangzhou city failed to break the world record because some of the food was wasted, Guinness World Records Ltd said on Monday.

"We held back on the results because we were reviewing the information submitted by the organisers," Sharon Yang, Guinness Greater China marketing director, told Xinhua.

"They admitted that 150 kilogrammes of the rice was improperly disposed of. Products created in any record attempt involving food must be eaten and not wasted. We have notified the organisers that the record will not stand," she said.

This decision came after reports that the rice was used as pig feed. This year is the 2,500th anniversary of Yangzhou in the eastern province of Jiangsu and as part of the celebrations, 300 people spent four hours last Friday cooking 4.19 tonnes of Yangzhou fried rice.

The fried rice, flavoured with sea cucumber and other ingredients, reportedly broke the previous record, which had been held by Turkey.

The organisers had said that the rice would be distributed to students of four schools, but an unnamed Yangzhou tourism bureau official said that 150 kilogrammes of rice was not distributed because it had been stored for more than four hours and was unsuitable for people to eat.

PTI