When I woke up today, the last thing I thought I’d be doing is spending the entire morning looking at the remains of masticated food in people’s mouths. But some would say this is the unexpectedly funny side of my job as Director of Records Management at Guinness World Records™!

I travel around the world to ensure that GWR's rules are being strictly followed on record attempts, and to announce world records. Today, however, only a short cab ride here in London was required, to the Metro newspaper HQ in Kensington, where I was asked to adjudicate a legendary record: the most Jaffa Cakes eaten in one minute. Metro challenged their readers to send in videos of their own attempts in a bid to qualify to try and beat the record, and were inundated with emails from wannabe record-breakers from throughout the entire UK – all wanting to have a crack at attempting the difficult challenge.

The record to beat was four Jaffa cakes in one minute, and I was a little sceptical, as usual. This was because I’d seen several attempts at this record recently – we even set up one test attempt in our own Guinness World Records offices (although we are not allowed to hold a record, due to conflict of interest, we like to try them out from time to time). But out of all these attempts, no one has ever beaten four Jaffa Cakes in one minute and I had started to believe we had reached the limit of what is humanly possible.

I know what you are thinking: “This is ridiculous, I can do more than that!” Some people claim to have eaten up to 12! However, the rules for this record are very stringent: no drinking, you can only eat one cake at the time and must show an empty mouth before starting to eat the next Jaffa Cake.

The “empty mouth” is the tricky bit. This record is about chewing and swallowing each cake completely. Some people forget to open their mouth to show that it’s empty; sometimes the mouth just isn’t empty! So I was prepared to see more remnants of food plastered around teeth and tongue. But I was in for treat instead!

The selected readers who decided to gamble their reputation in front of a camera had done their homework and all had their very own technique. Drink lots before the record attempt starts, to induce salivation; insert the Jaffa Cake from the chocolate side to facilitate sliding; bite off the rim of the cake to use the orange filling to keep the mouth moist… I am not kidding! The fact is, the training paid off for Andy Robinson, who elevated this record to five without too much effort, and for Paul Wilson, who took this record to what I consider an unbeatable level, managing to eat six Jaffa Cakes in one minute. Anybody care to prove me wrong again?

15 June 2009