World Steak Challenge 2017 now open for entries

This year’s World Steak Challenge sees a change in date, venue and new categories added.

Designed to benchmark the quality of beef production against international competitors, Gold, Silver and Bronze medals will be awarded to Rib Eye and Fillet steaks as well as Sirloins, the only cut to have been judged in the past two years of the competition.

From the winners in each category, only one steak will achieve the prestigious status of World’s Best Steak 2017. This year there will also be awards for the best grain-fed and the best grass-fed steaks.

The live judging and awards event will also take place at the Magic Roundabout in Old Street, London on the new earlier date of 4 July.

The process​

Last year, 83 prime producers from 17 countries entered the challenge, which was won for the second year running by Jack’s Creek, a cattle ranch business in New South Wales in Australia.

The winning steak, an F2 + Wagyu beef, was entered into the competition by importer Albers GMBH from Dusseldorf, Germany. The Sirloin was wet aged for 40 days, dry aged for five days and grain fed for 450 days.

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, the celebrated Dutch butcher Marco Peerdeman.

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.

The judging is independent and monitored at every stage. All steaks are coded throughout the judging process so that the producer’s name and country of origin is not revealed until both stages are complete. In this challenge, there is no minimum or maximum maturation date for products entered.

To enter, click here​