Fruit & Veg City supplier Vito Palero recently set out to beat the record for the world’s longest braai. The existing record was a daunting 28 hours and 30 minutes set by fellow South African Jan “Braai” Scannell. Scannell had himself brought the record “home” to South Africa in September 2010, beating a record set in Germany.
Tong Master Vito Vito decided to set the bar high. He wanted to not “just” beat the world record, but targeted a new high of no less than 32 hours. He started at 9am on Friday 23 September. Thirty two hours later, tired but triumphant, he had achieved his goal—very appropriately finishing on Heritage Day—sometimes called Braai Day. Vito had cooked hundreds of kilograms of meat while taking breaks totaling just 17 minutes.
A representative of Guinness World Records had flown to Cape Town to ensure that their strict rules were adhered to. Five different types of meat had to be on the grill at all times. Only one person was allowed to man the grill. Vito was only allowed one break of more than of five minutes each hour. The meat had to be well done as no raw meat was allowed. Finally, the meat had to be consumed and not wasted—and that is where FoodBank SA played an important role.
While some of the meat was sold with the proceeds donated to local schools, FoodBank SA collected and distributed the rest. This ensured that that those less fortunate could also enjoy a tasty meal. FoodBank SA delivered its share to four grateful Agencies within 30 minutes in a 20km radius of the event.
Several FoodBank SA representatives, including Ciska Coetzee, Loretta Ntsuka, Neil Davison and Mo Kajee (pictured) attended the event, held at the Foodlovers Market in Willowbridge in the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town. They supported Vito and spread the word about FoodBank SA’s good work.
Many congratulations to Vito “The Tong Master” Palero and a big thank you to Fruit & Veg City for enabling FoodBank SA to collect the food from this event. FoodBank also hugely appreciates an unexpected bonus: at the suggestion of Fruit & Veg City, leading audit Deloitte kindly donated to us their R30 000 fee for supervising the record-breaking event!
