The Reason This Charcuterie Board Record Wasn't Actually Broken
All lovers of world-record breaking charcuterie boards: Hold off on that celebration. Some media outlets, including UPI and NBC Boston, had declared a new Guinness record for longest charcuterie board. A group out of New York called 315 Foodies had assembled a 315.3 foot long stretch of meats, cheeses, crackers, and fruits on September 26 at a park in the town of Little Falls. By all accounts, the details of this record-breaking attempt are true. The board was as long as advertised, beating the official Guinness record holder by some 165 feet. The only problem is that Guinness has yet to acknowledge the feat. Search "longest charcuterie board" on the Guinness World Records site, and you'll learn the current record holder is still a 150-foot spread laid out in September 2019 in Chicago. The small print under Guinness' charcuterie webpage notes that "all records listed on our website are current and up-to-date."
The rumor-debunking website Snopes looked into 315 Foodies' claim, too, and declared it "false" — at least for now. Snopes even got in touch with Guinness World Records, and the people there confirmed their databases were current. We at Mashed had originally reported the world record had been broken, too, but we also noted that Guinness hadn't acknowledged the record yet and recognized that 315 Foodies would have needed to take all necessary steps to be Guinness-verified.
Guinness requires many steps before confirming a charcuterie world record
The people who organized the world-record attempt for longest charcuterie board were proud of their feat, even before Guinness' official blessing. "There were a million different things going on, a lot of moving parts, but at the end of the day, we broke the record," 315 Foodies co-founder Preston Moore told WKTV. "I think it'll be a long time before this is broken because this is a hell of a project."
The Guinness World Records website lists stringent requirements for a new record. 315 Foodies may or may not have had an independent witness on hand, as Guinness requires. The group must submit its evidence to Guinness and wait. Applications are taking up to 16 weeks to process, according to another Guinness webpage. The 315 Foodies webpage dedicated to the record attempt is currently under construction. Maybe the group will eventually have good news to announce there.
For anyone waiting for news of a charcuterie world record, patience might be essential. Guinness didn't announce a new record for most cheese varieties on a pizza until November 2020 (via New York Post) — more than nine months after the pizza with 254 types of cheese was created. However, when that record was broken with an 834-cheese pizza on September 25 of this year, Guinness posted the news just four days later. The difference? The chefs who created the latest recordbreaking cheese pizza had invited an official Guinness adjudicator to observe. The Guinness rep handed the chefs their certificate before they had a chance to put away their 834 blocks of cheese.